Long-term impacts of forest management on biomass supply and forest resource development: a scenario analysis for Finland

A national-level scenario analysis was conducted to comprehensively assess the long-term impacts of alternative forest management strategies on potential Finnish forest resource use. Four scenarios with varying management intensities were defined. The future development of forest resources under specific forest management schedules in accordance with the given scenarios was subsequently predicted over a 100-year period using the MOTTI stand simulator. The 10th Finnish National Forest Inventory data served as the initial simulation data, which included data from a network of 46,295 inventory sample plots that covered commercial forest areas across the country. The results suggest that there is significant potential to increase annual removals in a sustainable manner by applying more intensive forest management. In the intensive management scenarios, annual removals increased by approximately 40 % compared with actual removals. Moreover, annual areas of forest regeneration and pre-commercial thinning were 35 and 70 % larger than current treatment areas, respectively. Therefore, intensive management improves the profitability of forest management by nearly 50 %. However, there is significant variation in profitability between geographical regions because of differences in climate, forest site production potential and current forest structures. There were notable differences between scenarios in growing stock volumes and the amount of carbon stocks in forests. Extensive management increased growing stock from 2 to 3.5 billion m(3), while intensive management slightly decreased growing stock volumes and carbon stocks in forests. The results indicate that intensively managed forests are more efficient in capturing carbon from the atmosphere than extensively managed forests.