Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2021
Authors
Niels Strange Peter Bogetoft Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo Bruce Talbot Anders Holm Holt Rasmus AstrupAbstract
The forestry sector is constantly looking for ways for making data-driven decisions and improving efficiency. The application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) allow the users to go beyond looking at simple key performance indicators. Benchmarking is one of the most common tools in business for improving efficiency and competitiveness. This study searched for benchmarking studies in Web of Science until December 2020. It reviewed 56 benchmarking studies in forestry and discusses the potential advantages of using benchmarking in forestry. More than 80% of the studies apply DEA. This review found that almost half of the benchmarking studies in forestry have attempted to estimate the efficiency of forest management organizations at regional scale, mostly being public or state-owned forest districts. A bit more than one-third of the studies have focused on benchmarking forest industries and one-fifth, benchmarking of forest operations. Forest management organizations mainly applied benchmarking for internal comparison and forest industries entirely focused on competitive benchmarking. Surprisingly, in most cases the studies do not necessarily overlap geographically with forest rich countries (e.g., Russian Federation or Brazil). A number of studies address multiple criteria. The future potential for applying automatic data transfer from harvest machines to interactive benchmarking systems are discussed. Finally, the paper discusses the advantages and weaknesses of benchmarking and future research on improving usefulness and usability of benchmarking in forest businesses.
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
The use of biomass from forest harvesting residues or stumps for bioenergy has been increasing in the northern European region in the last decade. The present analysis is a regional review from Nordic and UK coniferous forests, focusing on the effects of whole-tree harvesting (WTH) or whole-tree thinning (WTT) and of WTH followed by stump removal (WTH + S) on the forest floor and mineral soil, and includes a wider array of chemistry data than other existing meta-analyses. All intensified treaments led to significant decreases of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and total N stock in the forest floor (FF), but relative responses compared with stem-only harvesting were less consistent in the topsoil (TS) and no effects were detected in the subsoil (SS). Exchangeable P was reduced in the FF and TS both after WTT and WTH, but significant changes in exchangeable Ca, K, Mg and Zn depended on soil layer and treatment. WTH significantly lowered pH and base saturation (BS) in the FF, but without apparent changes in cation exchange capacity (CEC). The only significant WTH-effects in the SS were reductions in CEC and BS. Spruce- and pine-dominated stands had comparable negative relative responses in the FF for most elements measured except Mg and for pH. Relative responses to intensified harvesting scaled positively with growing season temperature and precipitation for most variables, most strongly in FF, less in the TS, but almost never in the SS, but were negative for P and Al. The greater reduction in FF and TS for soil organic carbon after intensive harvesting decreased with time and meta-regression models predicted an average duration of 20–30 years, while many other chemical parameters generally showed linear effects for 30–45 years after intensified harvesting. Exchangeable acidity (EA), BS and pH all showed the reversed effect with time, i.e. an initial increase and then gradual decrease over 24–45 years. The subsoil never showed a significant temporal effect. Our results generally support greater reductions in nutrient concentrations, SOC and total N in forest soil after WTH compared with SOH in northern temperate and boreal forest ecosystems.
Authors
Björn Ringselle Benedikte Watne Oliver Therese With Berge Inger Sundheim Fløistad Liv Berge Lars Olav BrandsæterAbstract
Many herbaceous perennial plant species gain significant competitive advantages from their underground creeping storage and proliferation organs (CR), making them more likely to become successful weeds or invasive plants. To develop efficient control methods against such invasive or weedy creeping perennial plants, it is necessary to identify when the dry weight minimum of their CR (CR DWmin) occurs. Moreover, it is of interest to determine how the timing of CR DWmin differs in species with different light requirements at different light levels. The CR DWmin of Aegopodium podagraria, Elymus repens and Sonchus arvensis were studied in climate chambers under two light levels (100 and 250 μmol m−2 s−1), and Reynoutria japonica, R. sachaliensis and R. × bohemica under one light level (250 μmol m−2 s−1). Under 250 μmol m−2 s−1, the CR DWmin occurred before one fully developed leaf in R. sachaliensis, around 1–2 leaves in A. podagraria and E. repens and around four leaves in S. arvensis, R. japonica and R. × bohemica. In addition to reducing growth in all species, less light resulted in a higher shoot mass fraction in E. repens and S. arvensis, but not A. podagraria; and it delayed the CR DWmin in E. repens, but not S. arvensis. Only 65% of planted A. podagragra rhizomes produced shoots. Beyond the CR DWmin, Reynoutria spp. reinvested in their old CR, while the other species primarily produced new CR. We conclude that A. podagraria, R. sachaliensis and E. repens are vulnerable to control efforts at an earlier developmental stage than S. arvensis, R. japonica and R. × bohemica.
Abstract
Eradication of alien invasive species in the soil with steam as an alternative to chemical fumigation may allow contaminated soil to be reused. We have investigated steam disinfestation of soil to combat invasive plant species in three experiments including different temperatures and exposure durations using a prototype stationary soil-steaming device. The experiments included effects on seed germination of bigleaf lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl.), ornamental jewelweed (Impatiens glandulifera Royle), and wild oat (Avena fatua L.; one population from Poland and one from Norway), as well as effects on sprouting rhizome fragments of Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis L.) and Bohemian knotweed (Reynoutria x bohemica Chrtek & Chrtková). In Experiment 1, we tested four different soil temperatures of 64, 75, 79, and 98 C with an exposure duration of 90 s. In Experiments 2 and 3, we tested exposure durations of 30, 90, and 180 s and 90, 180, and 540 s, respectively, at 98 C. Seed pretreatment of 14 d cooling for L. polyphyllus and I. glandulifera, no seed pretreatment and 12-h moistening for A. fatua populations, and 5- and 10-cm cutting size for R. x bohemica were applied. Our results showed germination/sprouting was inhibited at 75 C for I. glandulifera (for 90 s) and 98 C for the other species; however, longer exposure duration was needed for L. polyphyllus. While 30 s at 98 C was enough to kill A. fatua seeds and S. canadensis and R. x bohemica rhizome fragments, 180-s exposure duration was needed to kill L. polyphyllus seeds. The results showed promising control levels of invasive plant propagules in contaminated soil by steaming, supporting the steam treatment method as a potential way of disinfecting soil to prevent dispersal of invasive species.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
2020
Abstract
As a carbon dioxide removal measure, the Norwegian government is currently considering a policy of large-scale planting of spruce (Picea abies (L) H. Karst) on lands in various states of natural transition to a forest dominated by deciduous broadleaved tree species. Given the aspiration to bring emissions on balance with removals in the latter half of the 21st century in effort to limit the global mean temperature rise to “well below” 2°C, the effectiveness of such a policy is unclear given relatively low spruce growth rates in the region. Further convoluting the picture is the magnitude and relevance of surface albedo changes linked to such projects, which typically counteract the benefits of an enhanced forest CO2 sink in high-latitude regions. Here, we carry out a rigorous empirically based assessment of the terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (tCDR) potential of large-scale spruce planting in Norway, taking into account transient developments in both terrestrial carbon sinks and surface albedo over the 21st century and beyond. We find that surface albedo changes would likely play a negligible role in counteracting tCDR, yet given low forest growth rates in the region, notable tCDR benefits from such projects would not be realized until the second half of the 21st century, with maximum benefits occurring even later around 2150. We estimate Norway's total accumulated tCDR potential at 2100 and 2150 (including surface albedo changes) to be 447 (±240) and 852 (±295) Mt CO2-eq. at mean net present values of US$ 12 (±3) and US$ 13 (±2) per ton CDR, respectively. For perspective, the accumulated tCDR potential at 2100 represents around 8 years of Norway's total current annual production-based (i.e., territorial) CO2-eq. emissions.
Authors
Johannes Breidenbach Lars T. Waser Misganu Debella-Gilo Johannes Schumacher Johannes Rahlf Marius Hauglin Stefano Puliti Rasmus AstrupAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Johannes Breidenbach Lars T. Waser Misganu Debella-Gilo Johannes Schumacher Johannes Rahlf Marius Hauglin Stefano Puliti Rasmus AstrupAbstract
Nation-wide Sentinel-2 mosaics were used with National Forest Inventory (NFI) plot data for modelling and subsequent mapping of spruce-, pine-, and deciduous-dominated forest in Norway at a 16 m × 16 m resolution. The accuracies of the best model ranged between 74% for spruce and 87% for deciduous forest. An overall accuracy of 90% was found on stand level using independent data from more than 42 000 stands. Errors mostly resulting from a forest mask reduced the model accuracies by ∼10%. The produced map was subsequently used to generate model-assisted (MA) and poststratified (PS) estimates of species-specific forest area. At the national level, efficiencies of the estimates increased by 20% to 50% for MA and up to 90% for PS. Greater minimum numbers of observations constrained the use of PS. For MA estimates of municipalities, efficiencies improved by up to a factor of 8 but were sometimes also less than 1. PS estimates were always equally as or more precise than direct and MA estimates but were applicable in fewer municipalities. The tree species prediction map is part of the Norwegian forest resource map and is used, among others, to improve maps of other variables of interest such as timber volume and biomass.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered