Elsevier

Ecosystem Services

Volume 45, October 2020, 101174
Ecosystem Services

Future trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in Mediterranean forests under global change scenarios

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101174Get rights and content

Highlights

Abstract

Mediterranean forests play a key role in providing services and goods to society, and are currently threatened by global change. We assessed the future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean pine forests under a set of management and climate change scenarios, built by combining different regional policies and climate change assumptions. We used the process-based model SORTIE-ND to simulate forest dynamics under each scenario. We coupled the outputs of SORTIE-ND with empirical and process-based models to estimate changes in harvested timber, carbon storage, mushroom yield, water provision, soil erosion mitigation and habitat for biodiversity by 2100, and assessed the trade-offs and synergies between services. Our results suggest that future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean forests will be more strongly determined by management policies than by climate. However, no management policy maximized the provision of all services. The continuation of the business-as-usual management would benefit some services to the detriment of water provision, but leads to higher vulnerability to extreme drought-events or wildfires. Managing for reducing forest vulnerability will balance the provision of services while reducing the risk of damage to forest functioning. We also found multiple spatial synergies between ecosystem services provision, likely driven by differences in site productivity.

Introduction

For centuries, forests in the Mediterranean basin have contributed to human well-being and to national economies by providing multiple ecosystem services (FAO and Plan Bleu, 2018, Gauquelin et al., 2018). These include goods such as timber, mushrooms or cork, but also regulating services such as prevention of soil erosion or water purification (Croitoru and Liagre, 2013, Merlo and Croitoru, 2005). As a consequence, Mediterranean forests have evolved over centuries in close interaction with human activities (Blondel et al., 2010).

In the last decades, the low economic profit of most forest products – particularly timber – has led to a progressive abandonment of forestry activities in the Northern shore of the Mediterranean basin (Valls et al., 2012). As a result, many forests currently have dense structures, with increased competition for resources, growth stagnation and a generalized tree weakening, eventually increasing fire risk and the vulnerability of forests to abiotic and biotic disturbances (e.g. droughts and pests; FAO and Plan Bleu, 2018). Moreover, the Mediterranean basin is one of the world’s primary climate change hotspots (Diffenbaugh and Giorgi, 2012). Climate change predictions for the Mediterranean basin foresee a generalized increase in average mean temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns, along with an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events (Cramer et al., 2018, Stocker et al., 2013). Increasingly warm and dry conditions can cause climate-driven forest growth decline and die-off episodes, especially when they affect forest which are already vulnerable due to their structure (Carnicer et al., 2011, Gentilesca et al., 2017, Klein et al., 2019). The resulting reduction in forest productivity and increase in tree mortality can ultimately lead to profound changes in ecosystem processes and functions, eventually affecting the provision of their associated ecosystem services (Felipe-Lucia et al., 2018, Fu et al., 2013).

Adaptation of forests to climate change can be assisted through forest management (Vilà-Cabrera et al., 2018). Management objectives are not only determined by the ecological and socio-economic context at the local level (e.g. sub-national forest and environmental policies), but also by the decisions and policies implemented at regional and continental scales. These multiple objectives and influential factors – as well as their interactions – should be considered when predicting the future composition and structure of Mediterranean forests and the potential services they will provide (Morán-Ordóñez et al., 2019). However, to date, only a few studies have explicitly evaluated the long-term consequences of applying alternative forest management strategies on ecosystem service provision by forests and under different climate change projections (e.g. Albrich et al., 2018, Mina et al., 2017, Schwaiger et al., 2019), and none of them focused on Mediterranean forests.

Scenario analysis is an excellent tool to understand the uncertainty around the future condition of a system (e.g. Mediterranean forests) by evaluating plausible changes in the relationships and feedbacks between its direct and indirect drivers of change (IPBES, 2016). An scenario is a coherent, internally consistent and plausible description of a possible future state of the world or the system model (Nakicenovic et al., 2000). The development of scenarios entails an exercise of creative thinking and integration of multiple objectives and values represented through the plural views of the different stakeholders. For example, the latest European Forest Sector Outlook (EFSO) used a scenario building approach to deal with the complex and imperfectly understood challenges in policy-making within the forestry sector at the EU-level (UNECE, 2011). However, evaluating the implications of these scenarios at the local scale requires incorporating local specificities in the scenario narratives, as well as using models that adequately represent the functioning of the system model.

In this study, we evaluated future ecosystem service provision of Mediterranean pine forests using an integrated modelling framework that includes the multiple factors that can affect their functioning at different scales. Our main objective was to assess the trade-offs and synergies in the provision of ecosystem services under a set of feasible future scenarios, using as case study the forests of central Catalonia (NE Spain). Most studies that assess the future provision of ecosystem services restrict their analyses to a single ecosystem service or a single driver (mostly climate), providing a biased and simplified view of ecosystem responses to global change (IPBES, 2018, Morán-Ordóñez et al., 2019, Runting et al., 2017). In our case, scenarios resulted from the combination of future socio-economic (EU forestry policies) and climate change assumptions. With the assistance of local stakeholders, scenarios were then translated into specific forest management plans used to simulate future forest dynamics and project changes in ecosystem service provision.

Specifically, we sought to respond to the following questions: (1) how will the ecosystem service provision of Mediterranean pine forests vary under different EU forest policies and climatic scenarios? (2) do trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services differ between scenarios? and (3) what driver/s are more important to understand changes in ecosystem service provision (climate, forest management)? By evaluating the dynamic response of multiple services to various sources of future uncertainty, this study aims to shed light on the future consequences of current management decisions, informing decision-making and forest management at both the planning and operational levels.

Section snippets

Study area and forest characteristics

The study was conducted in the Solsonès county, central Catalonia region (NE Spain). Solsonès is located in the pre-Pyrenees, in the transition zone between the plains of the Ebro valley and the Pyrenees (Fig. 1). Altitude ranges between 400 and 2400 m a.s.l., with a clear south-north elevation gradient. Climate is dry-sub-humid to sub-humid Mediterranean, with a mean temperature of 12 °C and 650 mm of rainfall (Supplementary Material S1). The county, which covers 1000 km2, is sparsely

Forest dynamics

Predictions of forest composition and structure of simulated plots differed markedly depending on the climatic scenario and, particularly, on the policy management scenario (i.e. the silvicultural plan applied under a given policy context). For both RCP scenarios, the low intensity of harvests under the business-as-usual management led to denser forests, with larger number of trees of relatively small size (Fig. 3). Final basal area of forest plots under the business-as-usual management were

Discussion

Our study used an integrative modelling framework that considered the impacts of multiple interacting drivers on a broad set of ecosystem services. We observed that the future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean forests will be strongly determined by forest management, and identified potential synergies and trade-offs between different pairs of services. As such, our approach represents a valuable tool to support well-informed, evidence-based decision making in managing

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Spanish Government through the INMODES project (grant number: CGL2017-89999-C2-2-R), the ERA-NET FORESTERRA project INFORMED (grant number: 29183), the ERANET-SUMFORESTS project FutureBioEcon (PCIN-2017-052), and the Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA Program). AMO, AA and MC were supported by Spanish Government through Juan de la Cierva and Ramón y Cajal fellowship programs (IJCI-2016-30349, IJCI-2016-30049 and RYC-2012-11109 respectively). SdM benefited from a

References (80)

  • A. Gil-Tena et al.

    Effects of forest composition and structure on bird species richness in a Mediterranean context: implications for forest ecosystem management

    For. Ecol. Manage.

    (2007)
  • J.C. González-Hidalgo et al.

    A review of daily soil erosion in Western Mediterranean areas

    Catena

    (2007)
  • C.A. Guerra et al.

    An assessment of soil erosion prevention by vegetation in Mediterranean Europe: current trends of ecosystem service provision

    Ecol. Ind.

    (2016)
  • A. Karavani et al.

    Effect of climatic and soil moisture conditions on mushroom productivity and related ecosystem services in Mediterranean pine stands facing climate change

    Agric. For. Meteorol.

    (2018)
  • T. Klein et al.

    A nation-wide analysis of tree mortality under climate change: forest loss and its causes in Israel 1948–2017

    For. Ecol. Manage.

    (2019)
  • H. Lee et al.

    A quantitative review of relationships between ecosystem services

    Ecol. Ind.

    (2016)
  • J. Martínez de Aragón et al.

    Value of wild mushroom picking as an environmental service

    For. Policy Econ.

    (2011)
  • F. Montes et al.

    Modelling coarse woody debris dynamics in even-aged Scots pine forests

    For. Ecol. Manag.

    (2006)
  • S. Schomers et al.

    Payments for ecosystem services: a review and comparison of developing and industrialized countries

    Ecosyst. Serv.

    (2013)
  • F. Schwaiger et al.

    Ecosystem service trade-offs for adaptive forest management

    Ecosyst. Serv.

    (2019)
  • J.A. Sohn et al.

    Potential of forest thinning to mitigate drought stress: a meta-analysis

    For. Ecol. Manage.

    (2016)
  • A. Vilà-Cabrera et al.

    Forest management for adaptation to climate change in the Mediterranean basin: a synthesis of evidence

    For. Ecol. Manage.

    (2018)
  • K. Albrich et al.

    Trade-offs between temporal stability and level of forest ecosystem services provisioning under climate change

    Ecol. Appl.

    (2018)
  • Barton, K., 2019. MuMIn: Multi-Model Inference. R package version 1.43.6. <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=MuMIn>. R...
  • D. Bates et al.

    Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4

    J. Stat. Softw.

    (2015)
  • J. Blondel et al.
  • K.P. Burnham et al.

    Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-theoretic Approach

    (2002)
  • J.G. Canadell et al.

    Managing forests for climate change mitigation

    Science (80-.)

    (2008)
  • Canham, C.D., Murphy, L.E., Papaik, M.J., 2005. SORTIE-ND: Software for spatialy-explicit simulation of forest...
  • C.D. Canham et al.

    Analysis Of neighborhood dynamics of forest ecosystems using likelihood methods and modeling

    Ecol. Appl.

    (2006)
  • J. Carnicer et al.

    Widespread crown condition decline, food web disruption, and amplified tree mortality with increased climate change-type drought

    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.

    (2011)
  • (CPF). Centre de la Propietat Forestal

    Manual de redacció de plans tècnics de gestió i millora forestal (PTGMF) i plans simples de gestió forestal (PSGF). Instruccions de redacció i l’inventari forestal. Generalitat de Catalunya

    (2004)
  • W. Cramer et al.

    Climate change and interconnected risks to sustainable development in the Mediterranean

    Nat. Clim. Change

    (2018)
  • Croitoru, L., Liagre, L., 2013. Contribution of Forests to a Green Economy in the Middle East and North Africa...
  • A.W. D'Amato et al.

    Effects of thinning on drought vulnerability and climate response in north temperate forest ecosystems

    Ecol. Appl.

    (2013)
  • M. De Cáceres et al.

    Coupling a water balance model with forest inventory data to predict drought stress: the role of forest structural changes vs. climate changes

    Agric. For. Meteorol.

    (2015)
  • A.D. del Campo et al.

    Ecohydrological-based forest management in semi-arid climate

  • N.S. Diffenbaugh et al.

    Climate change hotspots in the CMIP5 global climate model ensemble

    Clim. Change

    (2012)
  • Dirección General para la Biodiversidad

    Tercer Inventario Forestal Nacional (1997–2007)

    (2007)
  • M. Eugenio et al.

    Fire recurrence effects on the structure and composition of Mediterranean Pinus halepensis communities in Catalonia (northeast Iberian Peninsula)

    Écoscience

    (2004)
  • Cited by (75)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    1

    Both authors contributed equally.

    View full text