Forest age class structures as indicators of sustainability in boreal forest: Are we measuring them correctly?

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 202-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérome Garet ◽  
Frédéric Raulier ◽  
David Pothier ◽  
Steve G. Cumming
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Age Class

scholarly journals Projections of future forest age class structure under the influence of fire and harvesting: implications for forest management in the boreal forest of eastern Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Dinesh Babu Irulappa Pillai Vijayakumar ◽  
Hakim Ouzennou ◽  
Frédéric Raulier ◽  
Alain Leduc ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Age Class

scholarly journals Emulating boreal forest disturbance dynamics: Can we maintain timber supply, aboriginal land use, and woodland caribou habitat?

2013 ◽  
Vol 89 (01) ◽  
pp. 54-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Narayan Dhital ◽  
Frédéric Raulier ◽  
Hugo Asselin ◽  
Louis Imbeau ◽  
Osvaldo Valeria ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Age Structure ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Woodland Caribou ◽  
Timber Supply ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Potential Interest ◽  
Forest Age Structure

The effects on timber supply incurred by implementing an ecosystem-based management strategy were evaluated in an eastern Canadian boreal forest management unit. Standard linear programming was used to test the effects of four key policy issues: (1) aim for a targeted forest age structure inspired by natural fire regime and forest dynamics (multi-cohort approach), (2) agglomerate harvest blocks in operating areas to reproduce natural disturbance patterns at the landscape scale, (3) maintain cumulated clearcutting and natural disturbance rates inside the historical range of variability, and (4) exclude from harvest areas of potential interest to aboriginal people. The targeted forest age structure was achieved with a minimum reduction of periodic timber supply, but only after 50 years. Compared to a “business-as-usual” scenario, inclusion of the first three policy issues resulted in a 3% to 11% reduction in planned timber supply and a restoration period requiring that 43% to 67% of the productive area be excluded from clearcutting activities for the next 50 years. Such results require that partial cutting not be confined to operating areas eligible for clearcutting. Further exclusion of forest areas of potential interest to aboriginal people resulted in an additional 4% to 10% decrease in planned timber supply. Validation of the coarse filters used in this study (first three policy issues) was done using habitat requirements of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). Almost all scenarios induced a disturbance rate likely to allow a self-sustaining woodland caribou population within 25 years.

Timber production versus old-growth preservation with endogenous prices and forest age-classes

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1296-1310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli Tahvonen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Values ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Timber Production ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
Age Classes ◽  
Old Growth ◽  
Class Distribution ◽  
Age Class ◽  
Long Run

This study combines timber production and environmental values, applying a dynamic forest-level economic model with any number of forest age-classes. The model includes endogenous timber price or nonlinear harvesting costs and various possibilities to specify the dependence of environmental values (related e.g. to species persistence) on the forest age-class structure. The nonlinearities in the net benefits from timber production have the consequence that fluctuations in optimal timber harvesting may totally vanish or at least become smaller than in forest scheduling models without ad hoc even flow constraints. If environmental values are specified to depend on the fraction of forest land preserved as old growth, the optimal long run allocation between timber production and old growth is represented by an equilibrium continuum. Thus the optimal long run allocation depends on the initial age-class distribution. The continuum and the dependence of initial age-class distribution vanish when the rate of discount approaches zero. If the environmental values of age-classes increase smoothly with age, the long run equilibrium may simultaneously include multiple rotation periods. The model determines the optimality of producing timber and environmental values separately at different parts of the forest or at the same piece of forest land. Numerical computation suggests that the optimal solution always converges toward some optimal long run stationary age-class distribution.

Clearcutting — a regeneration method in the boreal forest

1996 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Youngblood ◽  
Brian Titus
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Forest Regeneration ◽  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
New Age ◽  
Forest Stands ◽  
Age Class ◽  
Ecological Basis

Clearcutting is a method of regenerating an even-aged stand in which a new age class develops in a fully exposed microclimate after a single cutting of all trees in the previous stand. It is a common regeneration method used throughout the boreal forest of North America. The ecological basis for reliance on this method of regenerating forest stands is examined, including considerations for specific tree species, for stands, and increasingly more important, for forest ecosystems. Despite past success and continued reliance on this method of regeneration in the boreal forest, alternative regeneration methods are proving to be equally feasible. Key words: clearcutting, forest regeneration, boreal forest

Using salvage logging and tolerance to risk to reduce the impact of forest fires on timber supply calculations

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 480-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Leduc ◽  
P.Y. Bernier ◽  
N. Mansuy ◽  
F. Raulier ◽  
S. Gauthier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fires ◽  
Timber Harvest ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Timber Supply ◽  
Salvage Logging ◽  
Age Class ◽  
Burn Rate ◽  
The Impact

It is acknowledged that natural forest fires cannot and even should not be eliminated from the North American boreal forest. Forest fires produce immediate losses of wood volume, disrupt the conversion of the actual forest age structure into a target structure, and prevent planned timber supply (PTS) levels from being achieved. In this paper, we explore the extent to which periodic shortfalls in available timber under various burn rates can be mitigated through salvage logging and the tolerance of forest managers to a given level of shortfall, both as a function of forest age class structure. Simulations are done using both a deterministic and a stochastic representation of burn rate over time. Results show that the frequency of shortfall events can be reduced by salvage logging and by the introduction of measures that generate a tolerance to shortfall and that this mitigation potential is influenced by initial forest age class structure and burn rate. Results also show that even a 100% rate of salvage logging cannot fully compensate for timber losses to fire and eliminate fire-induced timber shortfalls. Furthermore, interannual burn rate variability reduces the efficiency of both mitigation measures. As the PTS is never realized under fire risk, the real cost of opting for different PTS scenarios should be estimated not from the difference in PTS but rather from the more realistic difference in realized timber harvest.

scholarly journals The Effects of Spatial Legacies following Shifting Management Practices and Fire on Boreal Forest Age Structure

Ecosystems ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1261-1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick M. A. James ◽  
Marie-Josée Fortin ◽  
Andrew Fall ◽  
Dan Kneeshaw ◽  
Christian Messier
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Age Structure ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Forest Age Structure

scholarly journals Fire History of the Lamar River Drainage Yellowstone National Park

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 131-133
Author(s):  
Stephen Barrett ◽  
Stephen Arno
Keyword(s):  
Data Base ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Lodgepole Pine ◽  
Whitebark Pine ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Subalpine Fir ◽  
River Drainage ◽  
Age Class ◽  
Gis Data ◽  
History Of

In this paper we discuss the first phase of a 3-year effort to document the fire history of Yellowstone National Park's (YNP) Lamar River drainage southeast of Soda Butte Creek. The overall goal of the study was to provide managers with a more complete understanding of YNP natural fire regimes. Specific objectives were: 1. Determine natural (pre-1900) fire periodicities, severities, burning patterns, and post-fire succession within the study area's major forest types (Douglas fir/ grassland, lodgepole pine/subalpine fir/ spruce, whitebark pine/lodgepole pine/ subalpine fir, and whitebark pine/subalpine fir timberline habitats); 2. document and map the pre-1988 forest age-class mosaic; and 3. digitize the age-class mosaic map for the YNP's GIS data base. This study is considered especially timely because the 1988 fires destroyed much evidence of area fire history. Our sampling in 1989 focused on a 24,000 ha area encompassing the Cache Creek drainage, which was severely burned in 1988. The forest age-class mosaic was sampled by increment boring and sawing fire scar samples from old trees (Arno and Sneck 1977, Barrett and Arno 1988). Aerial photographs were used to map the pre-1988 forest age-class mosaic; Data was digitized for the park's GIS data base. Information from the YNP fire atlas also was useful in interpreting fire patterns during the post-1900 period.

scholarly journals STUDY ON MONGOLIAN FOREST STAND DYNAMICS USING MATHEMATICAL MODELING

2017 ◽  
pp. 13-25
Author(s):  
Khulan M ◽  
Liu Junchang
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fire ◽  
Age Structure ◽  
Forest Stand ◽  
Stand Dynamics ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Forest Resource ◽  
Forested Area ◽  
Age Class ◽  
Commercial Logging ◽  
Main Factors

A Global warming, climate change and negative human activities are expected to directly and negatively influence Mongolia’s forest resource area and quality [21]. In 2015, Mongolian forested area was 12,188.2 thousand hectare and in compared with the forested area in 2010, it has decreased by 864.5 thousand hectare. The important causes of deforestation and forest degradation are fire, improper commercial logging, illegal collection of wood for construction and fuel wood, overgrazing, mining activity, and damage by pests and diseases. Mongolian forest stand is not only decreasing in quantity, but also forest age class has been changing into maturity forest classification in recent years. The maturity forest resource has counted for 74 percent of total forest resource is in National Forest Inventory, 2016. There are few study for Mongolian forest stand dynamics and this work is first research that used stochastic process to predict forest stand dynamics in Mongolian case. This paper considered the main factors such as Climate factors and Socio-Economic factors in predicting forest stand dynamics. The factors are chosen based on real situation of forest resource’s changes in Mongolia. The study has estimated coefficients of relationship between forest resource and main factors, as well as main factors and their explanatory variables, using suitable regression model for all estimation. Moreover, Markov chain process has been used to extracted future dynamic of forest stand by age class structure based on imbalanced age structure of total forest resource today. The result of this paper shows that the most important factors that influenced the future forest stand changes are forest fire, commercial logging and afforestation. The estimated model results shows the forest fire will be decreased (9%), commercial logging will be increased (25%) and reforestation will be increased (30%) by 2030. Specially, this paper presented that forest resource will be decreased by 13 percent in future 15 years. Additionally, this decrease is consist of forest age structure changes which is young aged forest would be increased by 27%, middle aged forest would be decreased by 15%, maturing forest would be decreased by 39% and maturity forest would be decreased by 16% in 2030.

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