Canadian Forest Service Publications
Managing forests for water in the Anthropocene - the best kept secret services of forest ecosystems. 2016. Creed, I.F.; Weber, M. Accatino, F.; Kreutzweiser, D.P. Forests 7(3): 23p.
Year: 2016
Issued by: Great Lakes Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 36655
Language: English
Availability: PDF (download)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
DOI: 10.3390/f7030060
† This site may require a fee
Abstract
Water and forests are inextricably linked. Pressures on forests from population growth and climate change are increasing risks to forests and their aquatic ecosystem services (AES). There is a need to incorporate AES in forest management but there is considerable uncertainty about how to do so. Approaches that manage forest ecosystem services such as fiber, water and carbon sequestration independently ignore the inherent complexities of ecosystem services and their responses to management actions, with the potential for unintended consequences that are difficult to predict. The ISO 31000 Risk Management Standard is a standardized framework to assess risks to forest AES and to prioritize management strategies to manage risks within tolerable ranges. The framework consists of five steps: establishing the management context, identifying, analyzing, evaluating and treating the risks. Challenges to implementing the framework include the need for novel models and indicators to assess forest change and resilience, quantification of linkages between forest practice and AES, and the need for an integrated systems approach to assess cumulative effects and stressors on forest ecosystems and AES. In the face of recent international agreements to protect forests, there are emerging opportunities for international leadership to address these challenges in order to protect both forests and AES.
Plain Language Summary
The paper is a review and synthesis of issues around the consideration of aquatic ecosystem services in forest management policy and planning.
