Modeling of Logging Industry Dynamics Under the Global Climate Change: the Evidence from Siberian Regions
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Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2020 13(11): 1870–1879 DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0691 УДК 330.15;551.583 Modeling of Logging Industry Dynamics Under the Global Climate Change: the Evidence from Siberian Regions Anna V. Chugunkova* Siberian Federal University Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation Received 14.06.2020, received in revised form 19.10.2020, accepted 13.11.2020 Abstract. As a part of global economy, forestry experiences influence of diverse factors and global climate change in particular, which can affect forestry directly or indirectly via changes in qualitative and quantitative assessment of forest growing stocks, and in positive or negative manner. Climate change effects on Russian forestry are still poorly studied and call for more attention in policy-making. One of the direct impacts is shortening of winter logging season duration, which may result in decreasing wood harvests. Using the data on logging volumes in Krasnoyarsk Krai and Irkutsk Oblast and estimated duration of winter logging season on meteorological stations for the retrospective period of 1966- 2018, eight ARDL models were evaluated. The modeling results supported the idea of dependence of harvested wood volumes on winter logging season duration across all considered meteorological stations. To reduce negative impacts on logging industry in terms of wood harvest reduction, adaptation activities in forestry are sorely needed. Keywords: global climate change, forestry, logging season, logging volumes, autoregressive distributed lag model. The study was funded by the Russian Science Foundation (project 19-18-00145). Author thanks Dr. Anton I. Pyzhev for helpful comments and suggestions on time-series modeling. Research area: economics and national economy management. Citation: Chugunkova, A.V. (2020). Modeling of logging industry dynamics under the global climate change: the evidence from Siberian regions. J. Sib. Fed. Univ. Humanit. Soc. Sci., 13(11), 1870–1879. DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0691. © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0003-0398-604X – 1870 – Anna V. Chugunkova. Modeling of Logging Industry Dynamics Under the Global Climate Change: the Evidence… Introduction der changing climatic conditions, which may Climate change challenge is now becom- increase or decrease growing stocks and, as a ing a very important topic. Over the last six result, their commercial potential (Boisvenue decades global mean air temperature reached and Running, 2006; Liang et al., 2016; Mendel- unprecedented growth rates and this tendency sohn et al., 2016). Positive dynamics in forest is likely to persist then in future (IPCC, 2014). productivity may entail more wood harvests It is notable that on the territory of Russia there and timber supply on global timber markets has been more than a two-fold increase of aver- (Garcia-Gonzalo et al., 2007). Annual global age air temperature: 0.47 °С against 0.18 °С per demand dynamics for firewood and biofuel is decade (Roshydromet, 2020). expected to be positive as well (Kirilenko and Climate change is closely connected to Sedjo, 2007; Tian et al., 2016). economy and considerably influences it, so Apart from positive impacts, there is a there is a growing body of academic literature set of climate-induced factors that drive forest on diverse economic effects of warming. For degradation and are commonly referred to as example, temperature and precipitation al- natural disturbances. For instance, detrimental terations results in diseases outbreaks among windstorms along with shortening soil frost population that reduces economically active duration may result in windthrow spreading population – workforce and GDP level as well (Saad et al., 2017). Droughts arising from per- (Bosello et al., 2006). Another set of impacts manent temperature rise with low humidity are covers changes in energy consumption, fishery, usually accompanied with insect infestations agricultural sector, forestry (Tol, 2009) and (Volney and Fleming, 2000) and frequent wild- natural disasters causing significant damage fires (Flannigan et al., 2000; Shvidenko and to infrastructure and material assets (Porfiriev, Schepaschenko, 2013) that are key stressors 2015). Climate change is able to exacerbate undermining sustainability of forest ecosys- some other global challenges, e.g. inequality tems and dark needle coniferous tree species in and poverty by slowing down economic growth particular (Kharuk et al., 2017). All these kinds of agriculture-dependent developing econo- of natural disturbances adversely influence mies in low-income southern regions where en- logging industry through shrinkage of forest ergy demand for cooling will tend to increase resources available for harvesting. Additional- in near future (Rehdanz and Maddison, 2005; ly, economic analysis of these harmful impacts Dell et al., 2008; Maddison, 2003). Conversely, in terms of damage costs accounting still meets high-latitude developed countries will benefit many difficulties (Ivantsova et al., 2019). from changing climate due to shortening of In the response to climate change the most heating season and decreasing costs for heating vulnerable tree species adapt by migration to- services (Labriet et al., 2015). wards more suitable environmental conditions Being one of the major parts of the global mostly to high-latitude northern areas. In the economy, forestry experiences diverse effects: eastern United States over the past 30 years institutional factors, macroeconomic environ- there was a considerable westward and north- ment and climate change along with its con- ward shift of tree habitats that occurred due to sequences. Climate change can affect forest the changes in moisture regimes of ecosystems industry directly or indirectly via changes in (Fei et al., 2017). In central Siberia the northern qualitative and quantitative assessment of for- forests edge moved a lot further upwards than est growing stocks, and in positive or negative southern one and changes in species distribu- manner. tion in favor of birch and spruce species domi- Since forest is considered as a renewable nation were identified (Tchebakova et al., 2011). resource and an important carbon depositor in According to some findings, an increase in air climate system regulation (Svidenko and Nils- temperature in the long run will propel shift son, 2002; Zamolodchikov et al., 2013; Pyzhev of the most vulnerable to drought coniferous and Vaganov, 2019), a lot of studies are focused towards tundra with milder climate, so in the on analyzing productive forest function un- south stands are expected to be replaced with – 1871 – Anna V. Chugunkova. Modeling of Logging Industry Dynamics Under the Global Climate Change: the Evidence… expanding steppes, resulting in 8-10% diminu- dence of harvested wood volumes on logging tion in the total area of light and dark-coniferous season duration on the territory of Siberian re- by 2080 (Tchebakova et al., 2016). As a result, gions from 1966 to 2018. logging activities will move mainly northward following the trajectory of forest migration Data and Methods (Kirilenko and Sedjo, 2007). In European for- In Siberia as well as in some other Russian ests under the scenario of infinite greenhouse regions logging companies perform harvest ac- gases emissions the range of cold-adapted tivities during the period, when forest ground Norway spruce is projected to shrink by over freeze enough to enable heavy logging machin- 60% and be supplanted by Mediterranean oak ery to access forest sites. This period usually (Hanewinkel et al., 2013). Diverse forest tree spans entirely winter and partially autumn and species differently respond to environmental spring months, so it can be reasonably identi- factors alteration, for this reason with warm- fied as winter logging season. er and more arid conditions drought-resistant Two Siberian regions, Krasnoyarsk Krai broadleaves are likely to displace more com- and Irkutsk Oblast, were selected as sampling mercially valuable but less resilient coniferous areas for my research due to the fact these re- (Drobyshev et al., 2013; Johnstone et al., 2010). gions take leading positions representing the Although logging industry experience highest share in the total timber volume har- indirect consequences of global warming pro- vested nationally (Gordeev and Pyzhev, 2015). cesses, there is a set of direct effects detrimen- In 2018, Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai tal to forest sector. Extreme weather events accounted for 15 % (35.7 million m3) and 12 in forms of windstorms, hail and heavy rains % (28.6 million m3) of total wood harvested in make performance of harvesting operations Russia respectively (UIISS, 2020), thus could dangerous for loggers (Rittenhouse and Riss- be reasonably referred to as the two largest log- man, 2015). There is also a risk of getting lost ging territories of Russia. logs while floating down the river due to in- Two key indicators are in the focus of the creased frequency of windstorms and spring analysis: duration of winter logging season and floods (Hellmann et al., 2015). Finally, an addi- logging volumes. tional direct impact of climate change on forest To estimate the expectable duration of log- industry is a gradual shortening of winter log- ging season, sets of temperature observations ging season under the rising air temperatures from meteorological stations that are located which might result in lesser wood harvested