Scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem services acknowledging healt (BioEssHealth)


Main funder

Funder's project number326309


Funds granted by main funder (€)

  • 144 514,00


Funding program


Project timetable

Project start date01/03/2019

Project end date30/04/2022


Summary

The projections of the recent UN Emissions Gap Report (2017) shows a large gap between the emission reductions necessary to limit global warming to 1.5-2°C and the likely emission reductions from full implementation of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions. The projections further imply different levels of transition from a fossil- to a bio-based economy. Forest is a main contributor of the transition to a bio-economy, so the different projections also mean different future forest uses. As forestry is a key reason for global species losses, the projections also mean different impacts on future biodiversity. Thus, joint work on global-, EU-, national- and landscape-scale socioeconomics, forestry and conservation is needed to resolve the future challenges of mitigating climate change, developing the bio-economy, assuring the wellbeing of people, and preserving biodiversity. The main research questions are:

i) What are the effects of the UN (2017) scenarios of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pathways on the future demand of wood from European forest landscapes? Answering this includes downscaling global demand to national- and landscape-level demand.

ii) How should we manage boreal and temperate European forest to deliver the wood globally demanded assuming the UN (2017) scenarios? We will identify compromise scenarios of forestry and conservation that fulfils the global demand of wood, and give equal weight to economic profit, diversity of beetles, provisioning of non-woody ecosystem services, including human wellbeing in the form of stress reduction or recovery. This optimization work will also study extreme scenarios revealing major trade-offs.

iii) How do interspecific interactions modify the stand dynamics of mixed and mono-specific stands and modify trees’ ecologic and economic performance? Resulting models improve studies of impacts on biodiversity.

iv) Do forest and climate variables, species traits and species-species associations explain community structure of beetles in European forests? Our Bayesian modelling also quantifies uncertainties.

v) What are the effects of forest and climate variables on ecosystem services, and what are the uncertainties in the relationships and in projections with resulting models?

vi) How is human wellbeing in terms of providing stress reduction or recovery affected by the local forest structure? We examine perceived preferences and responses on wellbeing in different forest types.


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Last updated on 2023-30-01 at 15:20