LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Forest Transitions in the United States, France and Austria: dynamics of forest change and their socio- metabolic drivers

Photo from wikipedia

ABSTRACT Understanding the drivers of forest transitions is relevant to inform effective forest conservation. We investigate pathways of forest transitions in the United States (1920–2010), France (1850–2010), and Austria (1830–2010).… Click to show full abstract

ABSTRACT Understanding the drivers of forest transitions is relevant to inform effective forest conservation. We investigate pathways of forest transitions in the United States (1920–2010), France (1850–2010), and Austria (1830–2010). By combining evidence from forest inventories with the forest model CRAFT, we first quantify how change in forest area (ΔA), maximum biomass density (ΔBdmax ), and actual biomass as fraction of maximum biomass (ΔFmax ) shaped forest dynamics. Second, to investigate the connections between forest change and societal resource use, or social metabolism, we quantify the importance of selected proximate and underlying socio-metabolic drivers. We find that agricultural intensification and reduced forest grazing correlated most with positive ΔA and ΔBdmax . By contrast, change in biomass imports or harvest did not explain forest change. Our findings highlight the importance of forest growth conditions in explaining long-term forest dynamics, and demonstrate the distinct ways in which resource use drove forest change.

Keywords: forest change; change; forest transitions; transitions united; socio metabolic; united states

Journal Title: Journal of Land Use Science
Year Published: 2022

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.