title: Evaluating management tradeoffs between economic fiber production and other ecosystem services in a Chinese-fir dominated forest plantation in Fujian Province.
abstract: Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) is not only a valuable timber species, but also plays an important role in the provision of ecosystem services. Forest management decisions to increase the production of fiber for economic gain may have negative impacts on the long-term flow of ecosystem services from forest resources. Such tradeoffs should be taken into account to fulfill the requirements of sustainable forest management. Here we employed an established, ecosystem-based, stand-level model (FORECAST) in combination with a simplified harvest-scheduling model to evaluate the potential tradeoffs among indicators of provisional, regulating and supporting ecosystem services in a Chinese-fir-dominated landscape located in Fujian Province as a case study. Indicators included: merchantable volume harvested, biomass harvested, ecosystem carbon storage, CO2 fixation, O2 released, biomass nitrogen content, pollutant absorption, and soil fertility. A series of alternative management scenarios, representing different combinations of rotation length and harvest intensity, were simulated to facilitate the analysis. Results from the analysis were summarized in the form of a decision matrix designed to provide a method for forest managers to evaluate management alternatives and tradeoffs in the context of key indicators of ecosystem services. The scenario analysis suggests that there are considerable tradeoffs in terms of ecosystem services associated with stand and landscape-level management decisions. Longer rotations and increased retention tended to favor regulating and supporting services while the opposite was true for provisional services.
authors.affiliation: Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China; Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: fjkanghaijun@126.com.
authors.forename: Haijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: brad.seely@ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Brad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Seely
authors.affiliation: Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China; Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: guangyu.wang@ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Guangyu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China; Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: john.innes@ubc.ca.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Innes
authors.affiliation: Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. Electronic address: fjzdx@126.com.
authors.forename: Dexiang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. Electronic address: fjcpl@126.com.
authors.forename: Pingliu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: tongli.wang@ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Tongli
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch, Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 9C2, Canada. Electronic address: qinglin.li@gov.bc.ca.
authors.forename: Qinglin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: Alternative management scenarios; Cunninghamia lanceolata; Economic value; Ecosystem services; LST; Tradeoffs