Assessing Socioeconomic Impacts of Climate Change on US Forests, Wood-Product Markets, and Forest Recreation

S cientists have suggested that future climate change wil l s ignif icant ly affect the dis tr ibut ion, condit ion, species composit ion, and productivi ty of forests (Aber et al. 2001, Dale et al. 2001, Hansen et al. 2001, McNulty and Aber 2001). These biological changes wil l set in motion complex regional changes in supplies of wood to sawmills and paper mills, producing effects on market prices. In turn, landowners and consumers will adapt in ways that cause further feedback effects on forests. For some time, social scient is ts have been assessing the manifold implicat ions for social and economic welfare. In particular, they have been examining ways in which price responses to changing supplies cause timber growers, sawmills and pulpmills , producers, and consumers to adapt. This paper reviews this research, focusing on the forest benefits of t imber production and outdoor recreat ion. Analyzing these sectors involves quite different methods and issues because wood products are primarily producer goods that reach consumers through a complex marketing chain, whereas forest-recreation experiences are directly consumed by visitors. As part of the national assessment of climate change, a socioeconomic team (the authors of this art icle) assembled exist ing data and conducted l imited new analyses. In this short summary, many important topics must be left aside. THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON

[1]  Richard A. Birdsey,et al.  Forest Sector Impacts from Changes in Forest Productivity Under Climate Change , 1995 .

[2]  W. Parton,et al.  Analysis of factors controlling soil organic matter levels in Great Plains grasslands , 1987 .

[3]  Vemap Participants.  Vegetation/ecosystem modeling and analysis project: Comparing biogeography and biogeochemistry models in a continental-scale study of terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change and CO2 doubling , 1995 .

[4]  Bruce A. McCarl,et al.  SEQUESTERING CARBON ON AGRICULTURAL LAND: SOCIAL COST AND IMPACTS ON TIMBER MARKETS , 1993 .

[5]  H. Shugart,et al.  The transient response of terrestrial carbon storage to a perturbed climate , 1993, Nature.

[6]  G. V. Kooten,et al.  Assessing economic benefits of climate change on Canada's boreal forest , 1989 .

[7]  B. McCarl,et al.  Impacts of Incorporating Land Exchanges Between Forestry and Agriculture in Sector Models , 1998, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

[8]  R. Mendelsohn,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy: The impact of climate change on outdoor recreation , 1999 .

[9]  Climatic Change and Canada's Boreal Forest: Socio‐economic Issues and Implications for Land Use , 1995 .

[10]  G. Wall.  Implications of Global Climate Change for Tourism and Recreation in Wetland Areas , 1998 .

[11]  Robert N. Stavins,et al.  The Costs of Carbon Sequestration: A Revealed-Preference Approach , 1999 .

[12]  Robert J. Scholes,et al.  Observations and modeling of biomass and soil organic matter dynamics for the grassland biome worldwide , 1993 .

[13]  R. Birdsey,et al.  Carbon pools and flux in U.S. forest products , 1996 .

[14]  US National Climate Change Assessment on Forest Ecosystems: An Introduction , 2001 .

[15]  M. Lings,et al.  Articles , 1967, Soil Science Society of America Journal.

[16]  Richard W. Haynes,et al.  The 1993 RPA timber assessment update , 1995 .

[17]  J. M. Callaway,et al.  Minimum Cost Strategies for Sequestering Carbon in Forests , 1999 .

[18]  Climate Change and U.S. Water Resources: Results from a Study by the American Association for Advancement of Science , 1989 .

[19]  R. Birdsey,et al.  The impact of climate change on America's forests: a technical document supporting the 2000 USDA Forest Service RPA Assessment. , 2000 .

[20]  R. Sedjo,et al.  Economics of carbon sequestration in forestry , 1997 .

[21]  Ronald P. Neilson,et al.  The transient response of vegetation to climate change: A potential source of CO2 to the atmosphere , 1992 .

[22]  James E. Neumann,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy: Frontmatter , 1999 .

[23]  Robert A. Mickler,et al.  The Productivity and Sustainability of Southern Forest Ecosystems in a Changing Environment , 1998, Ecological Studies.

[24]  Bernhard Schlamadinger,et al.  Forest Harvests and Wood Products: Sources and Sinks of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide , 1998, Forest Science.

[25]  G. Yohe,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy: The economic damage induced by sea level rise in the United States , 1999 .

[26]  A. McGuire,et al.  Interactions between carbon and nitrogen dynamics in estimating net primary productivity for potential vegetation in North America , 1992 .

[27]  A. Lugo,et al.  Climate Change and Forest Disturbances , 2001 .

[28]  K. E. Skog,et al.  Carbon cycling through wood products : The role of wood and paper products in carbon sequestration , 1998 .

[29]  P. J. Parks,et al.  Least-Cost Forest Carbon Reserves: Cost-Effective Subsidies to Convert Marginal Agricultural Land to Forests , 1995 .

[30]  Rik Leemans,et al.  Simulating the carbon flux between the terrestrial environment and the atmosphere , 1994 .

[31]  R. Birdsey,et al.  The impact of climate change on America's forests , 2000 .

[32]  B. Sohngen,et al.  Mitigation, adaptation, and climate change: results from recent research on US timber markets , 2000 .

[33]  Rattan Lal,et al.  Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry , 2015 .

[34]  R. Neilson,et al.  Forest Processes and Global Environmental Change: Predicting the Effects of Individual and Multiple Stressors , 2001 .

[35]  W. Shaw.  Problems With Estimating the Economic Impacts of Averting Climate Change: A Look at Water Resources , 1996 .

[36]  T. Logan.  Economics of Carbon Sequestration in Forestry , 1997 .

[37]  R. Sedjo.  Forests: a tool to moderate global warming , 1989 .

[38]  L. Iverson,et al.  Global Change in Forests: Responses of Species, Communities, and Biomes , 2001 .

[39]  Steven M. Winnett.  Potential effects of climate change on U.S. forests: a review , 1998 .

[40]  J. Crespi,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy: Estimated effects of climate change on selected outdoor recreation activities in the United States , 1999 .

[41]  Bruce A. McCarl,et al.  Assessing effects of mitigation strategies for global climate change with an intertemporal model of the U.S. forest and agriculture sectors , 1997, Economics of Carbon Sequestration in Forestry.

[42]  A. McGuire,et al.  Global climate change and terrestrial net primary production , 1993, Nature.

[43]  Bruce A. McCarl,et al.  Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model (FASOM): Model structure and policy applications. Forest Service research paper , 1996 .

[44]  H. K. Cordell,et al.  Outdoor recreation participation trends , 1999 .

[45]  Economic Dimensions of Climate Change Impacts on Southern Forests , 1998 .

[46]  C. Binkley.  A Case Study of the Effects of CO2-Induced Climatic Warming on Forest Growth and the Forest Sector: B. Economic Effects on the World’s Forest Sector , 1988 .

[47]  Robert Mendelsohn,et al.  Valuing the Impact of Large-Scale Ecological Change in a Market: The Effect of Climate Change on U.S. Timber , 1998 .

[48]  R. Birdsey,et al.  Carbon fluxes resulting from U.S. private timberland management , 1993 .