Ecosystem services in Swedish forests

ABSTRACT

We identify, describe qualitatively, quantify biophysically and, if possible, monetarily valuate the most important ecosystem services in Swedish forests. Existing Swedish and Nordic research and statistics within this area are reviewed and used to develop a first framework for the valuation of ecosystem services in Swedish forests. We base our analysis on the CICES framework and the Cascade-model. Despite the rather long occurrence and use of the concept of ecosystem services, we do not yet have enough information on the status and economic value of services in Swedish forests. The value of the forest ecosystem services is at best an indication of the different multifunctional objectives that should be met in the management of the Swedish forests. The five most central ecosystem services in Swedish forests according to annual flow are timber and pulpwood, bioenergy, game, climate regulation and recreation and training, each estimated to have a monetary value of several billion SEK. The different ecosystem services in multipurpose forests interact with each other and may lead to conflicts between use and conservation. We identified a number of trade-offs and synergies between services focusing on the five above ecosystem services.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem services
• Swedish forests
• indicators
• biophysical valuation
• economic valuation
• trade-offs

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the help of Veronika Kronnäs and John Munthe. Comments and suggestions from two unknown referees largely helped improving the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.