An indicator to assess the pellet production per forest area. A case-study from Portugal

In this paper we propose a new indicator to assess the production capacity of pellets per forest area, IPelletsForest and to support forest management practices and policies. IPelletsForest is a tool to help decision makers to understand the dimension of the market production in relation to the forest area available, by economic region. Instead of capacity, the Portuguese real pellet productivity capacity in the period 2009-2012 in Portugal was 1068 Mt, which surpassed the total production of Central and South America, Africa and Oceania, and matched that of the entire Asian region, representing the most important pellet production region in the world. In conclusion, Portuguese real pellet productivity capacity per forest area is 344.7 t/ha (total forest ecosystem area) and 1526.3 (only P. pinaster forest ecosystem area).