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Abstract: "This report documents trends and impacts of climate change on America's forests as required by the Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974. Recent research on the impact of climate and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide on plant productivity is synthesized. Modeling analyses explore the potential impact of climate changes on forests, wood products, and carbon in the United States."
The loss of biodiversity is a major environmental problem in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. This loss is accelerating driven by climate change, as well as by other causes including agricultural exploitation, fragmentation and degradation triggered by land use changes. The crucial issue under debate is the impact on the welfare of current and future population, and the role of humans in the exploitation of natural resources. This is of particular importance in Central America, which it is amongst the richest and most threatened biodiversity regions on the Earth, and where the loss of ecosystems strongly affects its socio-economic vulnerability. This book addresses the impacts of climate and land-use change on tropical forest ecosystems in this important region, and assesses the expected economic costs if no policy action is taken, under different future scenarios and for different geographical scales. This innovative collection utilises both theoretical approaches and empirical results to provide a conceptual framework for an integrated analysis of climate and land-use change impacts on forest ecosystems and related economic effects, offering insight into the complex relationship between ecosystems and benefits to humans. This important contribution to forest ecosystems and climate change provides invaluable reading for students and scholars in the fields of environmental and ecological economics, environmental science and forestry, natural resource management, agriculture and climate change.
Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.
The increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has raised concern about the vulnerability of forests to potential changes in climate and climate variability. These concerns have prompted governments around the world to commission technical assessments on the impact of climate change on the environment and the economy. Based on the current scientific information within these assessments, governments have initiated negotiations on policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to address the vulnerabilities of the ecological, economic, and social systems to climate change. Critical to policy formulation is a periodic synthesis of the ever-expanding knowledge on forest ecology, the impact of climate on the forests and of forests on climate, forest management, the socio-economic value of trees and forests, and the role of forests in the global carbon cycle. The Forest Service conducts periodic assessments of the condition of forest and rangeland resources under the authority of the Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA). The structure of these periodic assessments allows for the synthesis and integration of the current state of scientific knowledge. As part of the RPA process, this report synthesizes current information that assesses the impact of climate change on US forests. Six policy questions critical to understanding the impact of global climate change on current and future trends form the basis for this report. The first chapter describes mandates and structures of synthesizing scientific information on the forest sector, describes current understandings of the global climate, and closes with policy questions addressed in this assessment. The next chapters address the six policy questions of: what are the likely effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and prospective climate changes on ecosystem productivity, as measured by changes in net primary productivity?, to what geographic extent will potential ecosystem types change or move across the US, as measured in composition and boundary changes?, what changes in forest productivity will occur as measured by changes in volume, growth and biomass?, what are the potential impacts on the forest sector under climate change, as measured by employment and timber prices?, when forest policy questions for the RPA Assessment, such as reduced NFS harvest, are examined with and without climate change, do the forest sector impacts differ greatly in magnitude or kind?, and what are the opportunities and costs of emissions mitigation using forest ecosystem management and forest product technologies?
Future Forests: Adaptation to Climate Change provides background on forests as natural and social systems, the current distribution and dynamics based on major biomes that set the stage for their role of forests in global systems, the nature of climate change organized by biomes, and detailed descriptions of mitigation and adaptation strategies. This book forms presents a foundational summary of the feedback between the effect of climate change on forests and the converse effects of forests on climate, leading to conclusions on how forest management needs to be dictated by climate change.The book will be ideal for readers in the fields of climate change science, forest science and conservation biology, helping them develop a thorough understanding on the broad perspective of climate change on forests, the response of forests to these changes, and other climate-forest interaction potentials. Organizes information on climate change and the effect of/on forests at a general level before presenting biome-related specifics Discusses the differences among major biomes (tropical, boreal, temperate) and the systems in which forest management (and hence potential mitigation and adaptation) occurs Goes beyond simply describing problems, elaborating on potential solutions that can be implemented for climate change mitigation
This open access book describes the serious threat of invasive species to native ecosystems. Invasive species have caused and will continue to cause enormous ecological and economic damage with ever increasing world trade. This multi-disciplinary book, written by over 100 national experts, presents the latest research on a wide range of natural science and social science fields that explore the ecology, impacts, and practical tools for management of invasive species. It covers species of all taxonomic groups from insects and pathogens, to plants, vertebrates, and aquatic organisms that impact a diversity of habitats in forests, rangelands and grasslands of the United States. It is well-illustrated, provides summaries of the most important invasive species and issues impacting all regions of the country, and includes a comprehensive primary reference list for each topic. This scientific synthesis provides the cultural, economic, scientific and social context for addressing environmental challenges posed by invasive species and will be a valuable resource for scholars, policy makers, natural resource managers and practitioners.
Climate change poses a huge threat to the West. The current mountain pine beetle epidemic with over 50 million acres of dying trees in western North America has created a powerful “teachable moment” across the region. A primary goal of the Forests At Risk symposium was to reframe the nation’s climate change dialogue by making the issue both personal and real to many who may not appreciate its connection to the immediate world around them. While some may have difficulty relating to rising sea levels, falling water tables, imperiled polar bears and melting glaciers in far-off places, they are still shocked by the sight of vast dying forests around their homes. The Forests At Risk symposium explored the statement by Andy Jacobson, a carbon cycle scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, that “this is the kind of feedback we're all very worried about in the carbon cycle ... a warming planet leading to, in this case, an insect outbreak that increases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which can increase warming.” The overwhelming scientific consensus holds that climate change is one of the most serious threats facing humankind today. We have a soberingly short time in which to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases if we are to preserve our quality of life and environment. In addition to the global urgency, the American West is deeply dependent on the health of its forests, mountains and streams for both its quality of life and its economy. Put simply, if global warming shortens our winters, diminishes our recreation, and unleashes wildfires, diseases and insect epidemics that devastate our forests, the regional damage would be incalculable. NOW is the perfect time to learn more in this ebook. The Forests At Risk symposium represented the first substantial public forum focused directly on the connection between climate change and forest health in the American West. In the wake of millions of acres of pine beetle devastation across our continent, this is the ideal moment to highlight the climate change connection and focus on the question of what happens when our forests transform from carbon sinks into carbon sources.