Mediterranean Forest Externalities
MEDFOREX
Research activities
The three main general areas of research interest for MEDFOREX are:
1. Valuation of Mediterranean forest externalities
2. Management and planning of Mediterranean forests
1. Valuation of Mediterranean forest externalities
There has been an incipient work over the last few years on valuing
different aspects of Mediterranean forests beyond market price
observation. As detected in the Inventory task co-ordinated by Prof.
Maurizio Merlo and undertaken under the previous MEDFOREX program,
there is no unified protocol in the procedures and the objects of
valuation are very divers and partial. One of the conclusions of the
mentioned inventory task is that a more systematic approach to
Mediterranean forest valuation would be most useful. In the previous
MEDOFREX several methodological approaches were already tested,
particularly the contingent valuation method and choice experiments.
Especially for Spain, the value of given forest projects and the
marginal value of some forest attributes (different types of
recreation activities, erosion prevention, CO2 sequestration, risk
of fires) were estimated. However, a more comprehensive approach to
value the different types of forests is still missing. This can be
achieved by direct valuation and also by transferring values
obtained in different contexts. Finally, some improvements were made
in analyzing the equity implications of forest policies, but a full
assessment is still needed.
The objectives of the
next MEDFOREX phase want to be a step forward in filling those gaps
and more specifically, for this area of research we will seek:
• To write a protocol for good practice in valuing forest goods and
services
• To obtain the whole value of given amounts of different types of
Mediterranean forests
• To obtain marginal values of some of the main attributes of the
different types of Mediterranean forests
• To identify the good practices for transferring values from valued
forest to other forests
• To further test transferability of values among types of
Mediterranean forests
• To update the inventory of externalities in Mediterranean
countries identified in the first phase of MEDFOREX
2.
Management and planning of Mediterranean forests
Management and
planning of Mediterranean forests can be a very complex problem
because of their multifunctional nature and fragility. There is an
increasing awareness of the impacts of extractive activities on the
Mediterranean natural systems that provide habitat for wildlife,
hydrological filtering, erosion control and other ecosystem
services. The ecological values must be safeguarded even as we
extract the tangible products from these natural systems. During the
first phase of MEDFOREX much effort was put to develop growth and
yield models for specific Mediterranean forest types (uneven-aged
and mixed forest stands) which are critical to predict the economic,
ecological and social outcomes of a given forest management
schedule. During the next phase of MEDFOREX, simulation tools based
on those models will be used to demonstrate their application for
assessing the impacts of decision-making in forest management and
planning. Emphasis will be on the development of new Mediterranean
ecosystem management heuristics that may take advantage of the
combined potential of multi-attribute decision methods and numerical
optimization techniques. These heuristics will enable producing
landscape-level management options with direct linkages to smaller
spatial units e.g. stand-level considerations. Combinatorial
optimization heuristic techniques will be used to formulate forested
landscape structural objectives that are correlated with
biodiversity and ecological functioning, with recreation or nature
conservation values, and with forest fire risk issues. The new
heuristics will thus be able to address a wide range of
Mediterranean forest ecosystem management problems. Therefore they
will become a powerful decision tool to end-users ranging from small
private forest landowner to public administration. Their feedback
will be also critical for developing new technology for advanced
Mediterranean ecosystem management decision support.
The specific objectives
of the area will be:
• To develop new risk assessment models to integrate forest fires
issues into the decision making process of forest management
planning
• To develop and apply multi-objective optimization techniques for
multifunctional Mediterranean forest management planning • To
develop computer tools that integrates simulation models,
optimization techniques as well as innovative presentation
techniques to support decision making in Mediterranean forest
management and planning
• To integrate equity considerations in cost-benefit analysis