Excel code for: Trading off nature for nature-based solutions: The bioeconomics of forest management for wildlife, timber and carbon
Data files
May 22, 2024 version files 969.88 KB
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Excel_Code_for_Calculating_Forest_Carbon_Benefits.xlsx
965.46 KB
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README.md
4.43 KB
Abstract
This dataset contains MS Excel spreadsheet code used to analyze an integrative model that illustrates the inherent trade-offs that will arise among the competing values for landscape space in a boreal forest ecosystem involving interactions among the main trophic compartments of an intact boreal ecosystem, aka “nature”. The model accounts for carbon accumulation via biomass growth of forest trees (timber), carbon loss due to controls from moose herbivory that varies with moose population density (hunting), and soil carbon inputs and release, which together determine net ecosystem productivity (NEP), a measure of carbon sink strength of the ecosystem. We examine how controls on carbon dynamics are altered by forest management for timber harvest, and by moose hunting. We link the ecological dynamics with an economic analysis by assigning a price to carbon stored within the intact boreal forest ecosystem. We then weigh these carbon impacts against the economic benefits of timber production and hunting across a range of moose population densities. Combined, this carbon-bioeconomic program calculates the total ecosystem benefit of a modelled boreal forest system, providing a framework for examining how different forest harvest and moose densities influence the achievement of carbon storage targets, under different levels of carbon pricing.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j0zpc86p1
CODE AND DATA FROM
Trading off nature for nature-based solutions: the bioeconomics of forest management for wildlife, timber and carbon
Jonah Ury, Matthew J. Kotchen, and Oswald J. Schmitz
School of the Environment, Yale University 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 USA
Description of the data and file structure
Overview
This file and overview is supplemental material accompanying the article “Trading off nature for nature-based solutions: the bioeconomics of forest management for wildlife, timber and carbon.” The assumptions are outlined in detail in the article’s Appendix S1, and all model parameters, functions, and their literature sources are presented in Table S1. The analysis presented in the excel spreadsheet examines the interrelationships between three main components of the bioeconomic system: the ecological system, the forest growth and yield system, and the economic system. The ecological system relates the interplay among net ecosystem productivity, aka the carbon sink potential of an ecosystem to tree biomass (T), moose population abundance (M), moose hunting (HM), forest harvesting (HT) and dead organic matter pools (OM). The Forest growth and yield system characterizes merchantable timber yield (H_TY), harvestable biomass, and their impacts on OM. The economic system links the two, by applying prices to HM, HT and carbon storage. The following narrative provides a summary of the bioeconomic modeling tool presented in the excel spread sheet that produced the simulation data presented in the article’s four figures.
Navigating the tool
This section helps the user navigate the calculation tool through the different worksheets in the Excel file. This tool is divided into four worksheets, summarized below.
1. Inputs: This tab controls the key model parameters for both the “Harvested” and “Non-Harvested” forest scenario. The user can change these inputs to assess the model results under different input scenarios.
2. Harvested Forest Scenario: This tab is a function-based worksheet in which the model results are calculated for a boreal forest area where timber is harvested in a continuously timber rotation. It is split into two sections. Users are advised not to modify cells in this tab as risks altering the calculation code.
- The first section (“Calculation of Costs and Benefits”) takes the model parameters and estimates the benefits from moose hunting, forest harvesting, and forest carbon (standing and dead organic matter pools) across a range of carbon prices.
- The second section (“Maximizing System Benefit Across Carbon Prices”) determines the moose population at which these calculated benefits are maximized.
3. Non-Harvested Forest Scenario: This tab is a function-based worksheet in which the model results are calculated for a boreal forest area where no timber harvest rotation occurs. Like “Harvested Forest Scenario” it is split into two sections. Users are advised not to modify cells in this tab as risks altering the calculation code.
- The first section (“Calculation of Costs and Benefits”) takes the model parameters and estimates the benefits from moose hunting and forest carbon (standing and dead organic matter pools) across a range of carbon prices.
- The second section (“Maximizing System Benefit Across Carbon Prices”) determines the moose population at which these calculated benefits are maximized.
4. Outputs: This tab brings together the model results from the two function-based worksheets and depicts the key result outputs from the model. The user can view the model results under different input scenarios here.
Code/Software
The file contains Excel code that converts an analytical model of forest ecosystem dynamics and forest economics to numerically calculate carbon benefits for various joint forest management activities (moose hunting, timber harvesting and carbon capture and storage) as a function of carbon prices. The data inputs for the code are presented in Table S1 of Appendix S1:Trading off nature for nature-based solutions: the bioeconomics of forest management for wildlife, timber and carbon by Jonah Ury, Matthew J. Kotchen, and Oswald J. Schmitz.
The Excel spreadsheet converts the analytical model into code to numerically calculate carbon benefits. Data in the article figures are generated using the spread code.