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Conference paper2003

Regional analyses of carbon sequestration and timber production potentials - A case study in northern Sweden

Vacik H, Lexer M J, Rauscher M H, Reynolds K M, Brooks R T, Backeus Sofia, Lämås Tomas, Wikström Peder
Rauscher, M H (ed.); Vacik, H (ed.); Brooks, R T (ed.); Reynolds, K M (ed.); Lexer, M J (ed.)

Abstract

A case study is currently in progress exploring the potentials of carbon sequestration in forest and forest products combined with timber production. Effective strategies to achieve this jointproduction are searched for. In Sweden few such studies have been carried out and the study will improve our knowledge of this joint production process. The case study concerns the county of Västerbotten in northern Sweden, a region that reaches from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mountains. This gives a gradient with high productive forest at the coast, and forest with decreasing fertility to the west. Many of the industries are located in the coastal region, leading to high transportation costs for timber and pulpwood harvested in the western part of the region. Thereby, conditions for forestry vary depending on location in the region. Important questions addressed concerns how harvest levels and economic outcome in different parts of the region are affected if compensation is paid for carbon sequestration. Different scenarios concerning carbon sequestration payment and transportation costs are investigated. Furthermore, the potential of fossil fuel substitution given a sustainable harvest of biomass fuel from the forest is discussed. The starting point for the analysis is a National Forest Inventory dataset, consisting of more than 3000 survey plots. Management alternatives are generated with a single-tree stand-management model previously used for solving multiple use problems in forestry. The time horizon for the analysis is 100 years. The problem formulation, the data set used, and time horizon brings about a large and complex problem, which is solved with linear programming

Keywords

forest management; carbon sequestration; boreal forest; single-tree model; optimisation

Published in

CD-Rom Proceedings
2003,
Publisher: University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria,

Conference

Decision support for multiple purpose forestry