Projected ecosystem data - Scotland

Forest restoration initiatives are becoming widespread in many European countries. Within these initiatives, attempts are being made to restore various forest habitat types and a wide range of areas with different socioeconomic and ecological backgrounds. Forest restoration goals in Europe may not always align with those of historical reference forests, as climate change increasingly makes such restoration unfeasible. As a result, objectives are often redirected toward managed forest states that support the continued provision of desired goods and ecosystem services. Therefore, the most likely trajectories of future forest development are needed to assess and evaluate restoration outcomes, as well as to advise on successful measures that could support upscaling of the restoration initiatives. This Scottish projection report is part of the deliverable D6.5 on projected ecosystem data. The forest development under varying restoration scenarios is projected for the upcoming 30 years, until 2055, using the EFISCEN-Space model. The model projections showed that (1) deintensification of forest management in high-risk wind areas and the conversion of even-structured forest to coniferous CCF increased structural complexity yielding higher growing stock in upcoming 30 years, (2) reforestation through planting future-suitable species allows for quick recovery of forest growth but also positively affects soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, (3)to support further development of forest resources and structural diversity, forest management needs to consider both suitable harvesting and thinning intensities and (re)planting measures, (4) the 463 536 hectare of forest restoration area may cost around 2.78 billion Euro (at average hectare costs of 6 000 Euro; see Scottish workplan v2.0).