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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2013

  • Title: Scenarios of Landscape Change in Massachusetts: Stakeholders, Landscape Simulations, and Ecosystem Services
  • Primary Author: Jonathan Thompson (Harvard Forest)
  • Additional Authors: Angelica Almeyda (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute - Front Royal); Meghan Blumstein (Harvard Forest); Eben Broadbent (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute - Front Royal); Kathy Fallon Lambert (Harvard Forest); Evelyn Strombom (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute - Front Royal)
  • Abstract:

    The nature and extent of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) in New England is influenced by economic, social, and policy conditions which are difficult to predict but that can be bracketed by scenarios describing a range of plausible future land-use conditions. By engaging decision makers from state and federal agencies, and representatives from conservation organizations, academic institutions, and landowner organizations, we developed a set of unique scenarios of future land use in Massachusetts for a 50 year period (2005-2055). The scenarios include: “current trends” (based on patterns seen in the period 1998 to 2005); “free market future” with large and unregulated forest conversion; “green future” with extensive conservation easements and clustered forest conversion; “regional self-sufficiency” with restoration of farmland and increased biomass harvesting. The landscape scenarios are then used to parameterize a coupled forest succession and land-use change model (LANDIS-II), which incorporates the impacts of the IPCC A1 F1 climate change projection on forest growth and species establishment. The simulations depict the each scenario’s effect on the condition of future landscapes at a high spatial (50m) and temporal (5yr) resolution. Simulated landscapes are then analyzed to address the principal research questions: what are the relative and interacting effects of land use and climate change and how do ecosystem services change under different landscape scenarios? Preliminary results demonstrate a greater influence of land use on ecosystem services compared to climate change over the 50-year study period. In addition, with three of the four scenarios, live aboveground forest carbon increases from ~120 to 130-155 teragrams (Tg), due to carbon sequestration by the secondary forests that dominate the landscape. The wide-spread conversion of forest to crops and pasture within the “regional self-sufficiency scenario”, however, results in a reduction of forest carbon. According to a analysis using an algorithm within the InVEST ecosystem services evaluation tool, forest habitat is degraded up to 250% in some scenarios over the study period. InVEST results also show substantial increases in water yield across all scenarios as forest conversion decreases evapotranspiration and increases impervious cover. The landscape scenarios project offers a novel framework for engaging stakeholders in the development of qualitative and quantitative landscape scenarios, using landscape simulations to understand tradeoffs among ecosystem services, and applying scientific results to landscape conservation and land-use policy at local to regional scales.

  • Research Category: Regional Studies