Tebenkova D. N., Lukina N. V., Kataev A. D., Chumachenko S. I., Kiseleva V. V., Kolycheva A. A., Shanin V. N., Gagarin Yu. N., Kuznetsova A. I. Developing scenarios for simulation modeling of forest ecosystem services// Voprosy lesnoi nauki. 2022. Article 104. Vol. 5. No. 2 Pp. 1–87. DOI 31509/2658-607x-202252-104
Abstract. Sustainable forest management implies the necessity to preserve and ensure a balance between the growing demand for ecosystem services (ES) of forests and the available opportunities. This challenge acts as motivation to develop new ways to incorporate diverse ES into the forest ecosystem planning and management system, with the social, political, environmental, and economic context being taken into account. One of the effective ES management tools is simulation modeling, which allows one to assess the risks and consequences of decision-making. At the same time, researchers face a new task of substantiating possible alternative scenarios for developing a forest area for subsequent simulation modeling. This article is aimed at analyzing approaches to the design of forest area development scenarios for local level simulation modeling and testing a new method based on the development of existing approaches to solving this problem. The first part includes an analysis of the state of modern research in the development of simulation scenarios; the second part provides a new method for compiling scenarios formed within the framework of the POLYFORES project, and presents the results of its trial run at three model facilities located in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, and Moscow Oblast. For forest areas of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, four scenarios for the development of a forest area have been designed in order to obtain benefits: 1 — from timber harvesting, 2 — from recreational ES and food forest resources, 3 — from regulatory ES, 4 — both from timber harvesting, provided that forest growing is intensified, and regulatory ES. For forest areas in the Republic of Karelia, the first scenario describes the situation of meeting the demand for wood while preserving biodiversity and the regulatory ES, whereas the second and third scenarios take into account the increased demand for wood and low and high priority for environment conservation. Two scenarios are relevant for the forest areas in Moscow Oblast, according to which, the citizens’ need for recreational facilities will increase, and the priority of preserving biodiversity when making managerial decisions will either remain low or increase. For each scenario, forestry measures corresponding to the management objectives have been developed. The proposed scenarios can be used to obtain information on the impact that various managerial decisions have on forest ES.