The overall objective of the project was to increase understanding of the relationships between site conditions and growth, yield and timber quality for current and future scenarios of atmospheric change. This objective was achieved by developing a prototype modelling system operating at an appropriate forestry management scale (the forest stand) to forecast timber growth, yield, quality and marketability suitable for application in the EU. The system also predicted and quantified reversible and irreversible energy fluxes to and from the forest, including those due to fossil fuel consumption. Such a forecasting system must account for the reshaping of European forestry through policies aimed at the optimisation of sustainable management, the provision of renewable resources and the protection of the global and local environment, in particular the role of forestry in the carbon cycle. Thus, a fully integrated approach to pre- and post-production activities is required to develop a tool suitable for use of both the timber industry and national/governmental policy decision-makers. In order to achieve this overall objective the project had the following specific objectives:
- to increase understanding of the relationship between tree growth, timber quality, site conditions and stand management using a network of traditional mensuration sample plots and supplementary information on structure, quality, environment and physiology;
- to increase understanding of the influence of climate and atmospheric composition (climate change) on timber quality through manipulative experiments and the analysis of wood properties for material grown under ambient and enhanced CO2 concentrations. This will be obtained through a combination of the analysis of existing plant material from previous experiments and new material from specific manipulative experiments;
- to construct and validate a coupled empirical-process model of timber growth, yield, quality and carbon sequestration including non-harvestable fractions, operating at the stand scale. This will be achieved using data collected under objectives 1 and 2, and additional validation being provided by flux experiments at monitored sites. This model will be based on widely accepted functions in an innovative modular structure;
- to simulate the impacts of future scenarios of atmospheric composition (climate change) on timber growth, yield and carbon sequestration at different spatial scales (stand and regional). The most up-to-date Global Climate Model outputs and predictions of atmospheric composition change will be used as drivers for the model developed under objective 3;
- to simulate and quantify the impact of forest management on timber growth, yield and quality allowing the optimisation of economic return and/or carbon sequestration and energy cost: benefits through sustainable practices of production;
- to simulate and quantify the impact of forest management on the industrial energy and carbon balances as a significant contribution towards a full life cycle assessment of wood timber production and forestry as an important land use system.
This project is carried out with the financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, DG Research - Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources Programme.