PROSPECTIVE EVOLUTION OF THE CARPATHIAN FOREST LANDSCAPE UNDER CLIMATE AND LAND-USE CHANGE: METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH

Abstract

Managed forests occupy the great share of the Carpathian Ecoregion. They provide timber and other products as well as important climate- and water-regulating ecosystem services. However, their useful functions have been compromised by unsustainable management and climate change. Therefore, there is an urgent issue of defining ecologically sound methods and volumes of forest harvesting and planting under progressing climate change. Hence, this paper describes the framework and the main methods for the study of the forest landscape prospective evolution under different scenarios aimed at the development of an optimal management strategy. The study is realized via a forest landscape simulator LANDIS-II as the case of Rakhiv administrative region in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains (total forested area of 1,340 km²). A forest landscape is interpreted as a process dynamic heterogeneous geoecosystem, which consists of ecotopes (elementary geographic ecosystems) with tree vegetation. A biotope, as a set of a tree stand properties, is a controlled component (output) of the ecotope, while a physiotope, as a set of abiotic tree stand conditions, is a controlling component (input). Biotopes change in space and time driven by succession, species migration, climate change, natural disturbances, and management. Such a framework has been realized by the means of LANDIS-II simulator for the six main species: European beech, European hornbeam, Norway spruce, pedunculated and sessile oaks (as one ecological unit), silver fir, and sycamore maple. The study focuses on the spatiotemporal change of the above-ground live biomass during the future 200 years with geospatial resolution of 30 m and timestep of 10 years. A natural (intrinsic) evolution of the Carpathian forest landscape has been simulated under five climate change scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, RCP8.5 and baseline) and different regimes of natural disturbances – windthrows and spruce bark beetle invasions. Now, the three main scenarios of forest management are under parametrization: 1. Inertial (persistent) scenario aims at preservation of vast single-aged spruce plantations. 2. Current adaptive scenario, which provides for tree stand restructuring according to current conditions. 3. Foresighted adaptive scenario, which considers conditions of the end of the 21st century.