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Complementarity in the provision of ecosystem services reduces the cost of mitigating amplified natural disturbance events

  1. Ben Crabbf
  1. aHoward H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and
  2. bDepartment of Economics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37920;
  3. cDepartment of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071; and
  4. Departments of dMathematics and Statistics and
  5. eBiology and
  6. fRemote Sensing/Geographic Information Systems Laboratory, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322

  1. Edited by Stephen W. Pacala, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved October 14, 2014 (received for review April 22, 2014)

Significance

Climate change has been implicated as a root cause of the recent surge in natural disturbance events, leading to a greater focus on disturbance-mitigating benefits of ecosystem management. Quantifying these benefits requires knowledge of the relationship between natural and anthropogenic disturbances, which is lacking at the temporal and spatial scales needed to inform ecosystem-based management. This study investigates a specific relationship between timber harvesting and climate-amplified insect outbreaks. If harvesting is located to mitigate long-distance insect dispersal, there is potential for a win–win outcome, in which both timber production and forest conservation can be increased. This spatially targeted harvesting strategy lowers the cost of providing disturbance-mitigating ecosystem services and produces net gains in forest conservation across various stakeholder groups.

Abstract

Climate change has been implicated as a root cause of the recent surge in natural disturbance events such as storms, wildfires, and insect outbreaks. This climate-based surge has led to a greater focus on disturbance-mitigating benefits of ecosystem management. Quantifying these benefits requires knowledge of the relationship between natural and anthropogenic disturbances, which is lacking at the temporal and spatial scales needed to inform ecosystem-based management. This study investigates a specific relationship between timber harvesting and climate-amplified outbreaks of mountain pine beetle. If harvesting is located to mitigate long-distance insect dispersal, there is potential for a win–win outcome in which both timber production and forest conservation can be increased. This spatially targeted harvesting strategy lowers the cost of providing disturbance-mitigating ecosystem services, because valuable timber products are also produced. Mitigating long-distance dispersal also produces net gains in forest conservation across various stakeholder groups. These results speak to ongoing federal efforts to encourage forest vegetation removal on public forestlands to improve forest health. These efforts will lower the cost of responding to climate-amplified natural disturbance events but only if vegetation removal efforts are spatially located to reduce disturbance risk. Otherwise, efforts to improve forest health may be converting forest conservation services to timber services.

Footnotes

  • ↵1To who correspondence should be addressed. Email: cbsims{at}utk.edu.

  • Author contributions: C.S., D.A., J.P., D.C.F., and B.C. designed research; C.S., D.A., J.P., and D.C.F. performed research; C.S., D.A., J.P., D.C.F., and B.C. analyzed data; and C.S., D.A., J.P., and D.C.F. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1407381111/-/DCSupplemental.

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