Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Forests as a natural ecosystem provide many functions and services that contribute to livelihood. Moreover, to provide multifaceted services, the forest management strategy employed is vital in establishing desired ecosystem services. Thus, this study weighed up gap-cutting and clear-cutting management and their ecosystem services in a Scots pine stands in southern Sweden. The method used in this study was the simulation of old and new forest stands with the Standwise Heureka decision support system application. Three treatments were examined. First is the gap-cut with five years cutting intervals, next is the gap-cut with fifteen years intervals, and the last is the clear-cut with which the gaps were compared. The study analysed the profitability of the stands with respect to land expectation value (LEV), growth in terms of the mean annual increment (MAI), and the ecosystem services that the stand structures can provide in terms of diameter variations. The results show that the Land expectation value of gap-cut with five years interval at a 3% interest rate does not differ from clear-cut. In contrast, there is much difference in the gap-cut of fifteen years intervals.
Furthermore, the growth performance of the treatments differed significantly, where the MAI of clear-cut was the highest and ranged between 6.5 to 8.75 m3 ha-1yr-1 and that of gap-cuts 4.2 to 6.0 m3ha-1yr-1, respectively. The diameter variation in gap-cut management was higher than that of clear-cut, and the 15-year interval resulted in higher diameter variation than the 5-year interval gap cut. This indicates that gap-cutting, especially the 15-year interval gaps, may provide more ecosystem services than clear-cut management. Thus, this study elucidates possible ecosystem benefits associated with the forest structure that each management type could produce in southern Sweden.