Assessment of the effects of forest land use strategies on the provision of ecosystem services at regional scale

This paper presents results of a case study in Middle Saxony, Germany, where the impact of conversion, afforestation and alternatively introduction of short rotation coppice areas on the provision of ecosystem services was tested in a spatially inexplicit and a spatially explicit way to formulate recommendations for regional planning. While the spatially inexplicit testing did not lead to clear results regarding to what degree forests or short rotation coppice areas are desirable and applicable, the spatially explicit testing revealed that an increase in the forest area or area with short rotation coppice by 29.7% in unstructured agriculturally dominated Loess regions, 14.4% in more topographically structured parts in the North-East of the model region and 23.6% in its mountainous parts would be beneficial. Potentially resulting losses in the provision of bioresources and regional economy can be considerably reduced by replacing afforestation areas with short rotation coppice.In summary, we found that the spatially explicit analysis of land use scenarios in combination with a more detailed land use classification and including an assessment of changes in land use pattern gave us an improved basis for assessing different possible planning strategies and to enhance the communication between forest management planners and regional planners.

► Involving land use knowledge in regional planning supports to account for realistic regional planning alternatives.
► Spatially explicit land use scenarios revealed benefits from adapted land use hidden in spatially inexplicit testing.
► Spatially explicit testing of forest land use scenarios shows that afforestation is only needed in poorly structured areas.