Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Climate change is driving worldwide efforts to mitigate and reverse the increasing anthro-
pogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Forests can uptake considerable amounts of carbon from the
atmosphere, but management decisions and resultant silvicultural practices can largely influence
these ecosystems’ carbon balance. This research presents an approach to help land managers cope
with the need to ensure the provision of forest products and services while contributing to mitigating
climate change via carbon sequestration. The emphasis is on combining a landscape-level resource
capability model with a mathematical programming (LP) optimization method to model and solve
a land management problem involving timber production, carbon sequestration, and resistance to
wildfire targets. The results of an application on a forested landscape in Northwest Portugal showed
that this approach may contribute to analyzing and discussing synergies and trade-offs between
these targets. They revealed important trade-offs between carbon sequestration and both timber
production and fire resistance
Description
Keywords
ecosystem services mathematical programming mitigation strategies silvicultural practices
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Marques, S.; Rodrigues, A.R.; Paulo, J.A.; Botequim, B.; Borges, J.G. Addressing Carbon Storage in Forested Landscape Management Planning—An Optimization Approach and Application in Northwest Portugal. Forests 2024, 15, 408. https://doi.org/10.3390/f15030408
Publisher
MDPI