Forest management for timber and carbon sequestration in the presence of climate change: The case of Pinus Sylvestris

Climatic changes will affect the dynamics of a forest ecosystem. Consequently, carbon sequestration costs can only be estimated correctly if changes in climatic conditions are considered. This article determines the changes in mitigation costs of an optimal forest management regime in the presence of climatic changes and varying prices, and takes account of substitution processes between timber production and carbon sequestration at the stand level. The study demonstrates that in the presence of climate change the sequestration costs per ton of carbon increase with higher amounts of carbon sequestered per hectare. This finding can be used to identify a threshold for the amount of sequestered carbon per hectare below which the costs of carbon sequestration are hardly influenced by climate change.

► Effects of climate change on the forest ecosystem ► Determination of the optimal forest management regime ► Integrated, size-structured, dynamic forest model ► Calculation of the carbon sequestration cost per ton of carbon and ha ► Findings for the design of an efficient mitigation policy for forest carbon sequestration