Enhancing forest models by incorporating forest managers’ behavior

Abstract

For centuries humans have managed forests for the provisioning of desired products and services to society. Quantitative forest models are frequently used to deal with complexity under uncertain conditions. Many of these models rely on a theoretical concept of how forest management is done. These models also ignore that forest management decisions are shaped by socio-economic factors, such as individual preferences, societal pressure, market aspects, policies and regulations, resulting in different forest owners and managers behavioral responses. Considering this, our study aims to improve the representation of the behavior of forest owners and managers in forest models to provide better decision support systems. By employing agent-based modeling principles, a preliminary framework was developed to define forest management prescriptions that would better reflect real-world conditions. This framework takes into account the impact of socio-economic factors on forest management incorporating the perspectives of multiple forest agents. EFISCEN-space was used as a base model to simulate forest development, as it allows a comprehensive understanding of forest dynamics, while considering multiple environmental objectives and management strategies. In order to assess forest management behavior, a dataset derived from a survey with forest managers and forest owners in two regions of Germany (Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia) was used. The collected data were employed to formulate alternative management scenarios, which were implemented in a practical exercise. During this exercise, forest managers simulated their management decisions in permanent sample plots, providing valuable insights into the motivation behind their actions. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted to further enhance the understanding of their decision-making process. Subsequently, we applied the improved tool to explore the impacts of a set of climate-smart forestry practices to provide decision support on maintaining and restoring forest biodiversity, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation. Finally, we discuss how forest models could be further improved by including forest management behavior and behavioral responses.