Introducing forest management in forest sector models: impact of active management and risk attitude on forest resources in the long term

Given the importance of anthropogenic determinants in forest ecosystems within Europe, the objective of this paper is to link the evidence arising from biological models with socioeconomic determinants, where the expected returns of forest investments represent the main driver. An inventory-based forest dynamic model is hence coupled with a market module and a management one in a national level forest sector model for France (FFSM++). Running long-term scenarios (until 2100) we show the implications on the forest composition of an active management: when the most profitable option drives forest investments, coniferous forests are generally preferred over broadleaved ones. This result is however reappraised when the risk aversion of forest owners is explicitly considered in the model, given the higher risk associated with the former. We further show the strong stability of forest ecosystems that, due to the very long cycles, undergoes very small variations in volume stocks even in scenarios where the initial forest regeneration is strongly influenced.