Seidl Rupert, Albrich Katharina, Erb Karlheinz, Formayer Herbert, Leidinger David, Leitinger Georg, Tappeiner Ulrike, Tasser Erich, Rammer Werner
Institute of Silviculture, Department of Forest-and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Peter Jordan Straße 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
Institute of Social Ecology, Department of Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria.
For Ecol Manage. 2019 Aug 1;445:37-47. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2019.03.047. Epub 2019 May 9.
Forest ecosystems provide a wide variety of ecosystem services to society. In harsh mountain environments, the regulating services of forests are of particular importance. Managing mountain forests for regulating services is a cost- and labor intensive endeavor. Yet, also unmanaged forests regulate the environment. In the context of evidence-based decision making it is thus important to scrutinize if current management recommendations improve the supply of regulating ecosystem services over unmanaged development trajectories. A further issue complicating decision making in the context of regulating ecosystem services is their high sensitivity to climate change. Climate-mediated increases in natural disturbances, for instance, could strongly reduce the supply of regulating services from forests in the future. Given the profound environmental changes expected for the coming decades it remains unclear whether forest management will still be able to significantly control the future trajectories of mountain forest development, or whether the management effect will be superseded by a much stronger climate and disturbance effect. Here, our objectives were (i) to quantify the future regulating service supply from a 6456 ha landscape in the Stubai valley in Tyrol, Austria, and (ii) to assess the relative importance of management, climate, and natural disturbances on the future supply of regulating ecosystem services. We focused our analysis on climate regulation, water regulation, and erosion regulation, and used the landscape simulation model iLand to quantify their development under different climate scenarios and management strategies. Our results show that unmanaged forests are efficient in providing regulating ecosystem services. Both climate regulation and erosion regulation were higher in unmanaged systems compared to managed systems, while water regulation was slightly enhanced by management. Overall, direct effects of climate change had a stronger influence on the future supply of regulating services than management and natural disturbances. The ability of management to control ecosystem service supply decreased sharply with the severity of future climate change. This finding highlights that forest management could be severely stymied in the future if climate change continues to proceed at its current rate. An improved quantitative understanding of the drivers of future ecosystem service supply is needed to more effectively combine targeted management efforts and natural ecosystem dynamics towards sustaining the benefits society derives from forests in a rapidly changing world.
森林生态系统为社会提供了各种各样的生态系统服务。在恶劣的山区环境中，森林的调节服务尤为重要。为实现调节服务而管理山区森林是一项成本高且劳动强度大的工作。然而，即使是未加管理的森林也能调节环境。因此，在基于证据的决策背景下，审视当前的管理建议是否比未加管理的发展轨迹能更好地提供调节生态系统服务就显得尤为重要。在调节生态系统服务背景下，另一个使决策变得复杂的问题是其对气候变化的高度敏感性。例如，由气候介导的自然干扰增加，可能会在未来大幅减少森林提供的调节服务。鉴于未来几十年预期会发生深刻的环境变化，目前尚不清楚森林管理是否仍能显著控制山区森林未来的发展轨迹，或者管理效果是否会被更强的气候和干扰效应所取代。在此，我们的目标是：（i）量化奥地利蒂罗尔州施图拜山谷一片6456公顷景观未来的调节服务供给；（ii）评估管理、气候和自然干扰对未来调节生态系统服务供给的相对重要性。我们将分析重点放在气候调节、水分调节和侵蚀调节上，并使用景观模拟模型iLand来量化它们在不同气候情景和管理策略下的发展情况。我们的结果表明，未加管理的森林在提供调节生态系统服务方面效率很高。与管理系统相比，未加管理的系统在气候调节和侵蚀调节方面都更高，而水分调节则因管理而略有增强。总体而言，气候变化的直接影响对未来调节服务供给的影响比管理和自然干扰更强。随着未来气候变化的加剧，管理控制生态系统服务供给的能力急剧下降。这一发现凸显出，如果气候变化继续以当前速度发展，森林管理在未来可能会受到严重阻碍。需要对未来生态系统服务供给的驱动因素有更深入的定量理解，以便更有效地将有针对性的管理措施与自然生态系统动态相结合，从而在快速变化的世界中维持社会从森林中获得的益处。
