Can sustainable forest management help fight climate change? SSAFR 2015 Sweden @ORNinja Marc-André Carle Martin Simard Sophie D Amours Mathieu Bouchard Steve Vallerand Alexandre Morneau Guillaume Cyr Achille-B. Laurent Université Laval
Context Canada emits 15.3 tons of CO 2 per capita In Quebec province, it s around 10.2 t To help fight climate change, these numbers need to go down. Yet lowering standards of living to reduce carbon footprint isn t very popular Forests can help in capturing carbon 2
Context Yet Canada s forest sector is a huge part of canadian economy. Shutting down the industry to use forests as carbon sinks = not very clever Can we capture more carbon in our forets while still getting wood the industry needs? Research question 3
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Methodology 1. Build a strategic forest management model incorporating carbon sequestration and wood supply. 2. Use the models to assess trade-offs (if any) between wood supply and sequestration. 5
Methodology: SFM AAC in Quebec is determined by the Chief Forester We use their models from two different regions A mixed forest from SW Quebec A boreal forest from NE Quebec Allows to work within parameters of current regulation Wikipedia 6
Methodology: carbon accounting Yield-to-carbon conversion, while easy, isn t appropriate. Living biomass accounts for 31,5% of carbon stocks in forests and achieves only 50% of sequestration potential Better approach: Canadian carbon budget model CBM- CFS3 by Kurz et al. (2009) updated in Shaw et al. (2014) State of the art for Canada 7
Foliage CBM-CFS3 Other Snag stems Snag branches Medium Merch AG very fast AG fast AG slow Fine roots BG very fast BG fast BG slow Coarse roots Biomass & carbon pools 8
Snag stems Snag branches Medium AG slow AG very fast AG fast BG very fast BG slow BG fast Decomposing the emissions based on origin
Relative size of pools 37,38 24,96 25,43 6,06 6,17 Living biomass represents 31,5% of carbon stocks in studied forest Aérien Souterrain Bois mort Litière Carbone du sol 1. Données de simulation tirées du Modèle du bilan du carbone du secteur forestier canadien (MBC-SFC3); données d une unité d aménagement de la région de l Outaouais de 485 000 hectares / 157 000 peuplements 10
Modeling slow carbon pools Objective = delay release into the atmosphere Metric: carbon-ton-year (CTY) 1 ton of carbon stocked 1 year Carbon is considered sequestered until released in the atmosphere Each forest activity/perturbation will generate a carbon sequestration activity for the next couple hundred years Wikipedia 11
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Modeling slow carbon pools Sample clearcut: 4042 CTY/ha Dead organic matter Living Biomass 100 90 80 70 60 50 12 1 15 29 43 57 71 85 99 113 127 141 155 169 183 197 211 225 239 253 267 281 295 309 323 337 351 365 379 393 407 421 435 449 463 477 491 505 519 533 547 561 575 589 603 617 631 645 659 40 30 20 1 2 3 4 5
Forest Model Model-III implementation 5-year periods, 150 year planning horizon Maximize non-declining yield (in volume, per species group) Subject to: Flow constraints Habitat/cover constraints Budget constraints (for silviculture) Other contextual constraints (fire recuperation, etc.) Wikipedia 13
Studied Area Courtesy of Google Maps CORS/INFORMS 2015 Montreal, Qc, Canada 14
Case Study #1: Mixed forest 485,000 hectares Mixed forest Public owned (crown land) 4 different companies use the wood from that area Only allow actions / treatments that are allowed by regulation 16
Forest Model Treatments (19) 1 plantation 3 thinnings 6 partial cuts 9 clear cuts Availability: Age Basal area / ha Volume / ha 17
What if we just let the forest grow? Considering all carbon pools (living, AG, BG) Model AAC (m 3 /year) Carbon (CTY/ha) Natural Growth 0 43 698 (100%) Max Non-declining yield 718 310 39 079 (89.4%) Max carbon storage 164 855 44 528 (101.9%) Removing habitat constraints -> 808 000 AAC 18
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What is different with max carbon versus max volume? Silvicultural budget shifts Less thinnings (-25%), more plantations (+14%) during first 30 years. Progressively less plantations Longer rotations for softwood 9800 ha / year harvested, 8.8% less Shorter rotations for hardwood 14600 ha / year harvested, 4% more Model pushes more carbon into the slow decaying pools 20
Case Study #2: Boreal forest 21
Case Study #2: Boreal forest 2,984,600 hectares Boreal forest (mostly softwood) Public owned (crown land) 3 companies use the wood from that area Only allow actions / treatments that are allowed by regulation 22
Forest Model Treatments (3) 1 plantation 1 partial cut 1 clear cut Availability: Age Volume / ha 23
What if we just let the forest grow? Considering all carbon pools (living, AG, BG) Model AAC (m 3 /year) Carbon (CTY/ha) Natural Growth 0 27 144 (100%) Max Non-declining yield 2 374 669 25 032 (92.2%) Max carbon storage 590 976 27 648 (101.9%) 24
Perspective Mixed forest Comparison with land use change (over 150 years) 1 ha reverted to forest 23,800 CTY Equivalent impact of 15,000 ha reverted to forest Boreal forest Calculation not as straightforward as it depends where on the landscape and most land is already forest. 25
Conclusion Forests can help sequestrate carbon, but impact is limited without changing allowed prescriptions Yield-to-carbon modelling approach accounts for 25% of carbon stocks and achieves only 50% of carbon sequestration potential Implies less thinnings, more plantations, shorter rotation for hardwood & longer for softwood Feel free to follow me at: @ORNinja 26
Future research: treatments! What if we extended what is currently allowable? What are the impacts of habitat constraints? Land use impact has a lot more impact than forest management strategies Feel free to follow me at: @ORNinja 27
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Age distribution for boreal forest 30