Predicting the provisioning potential of forest ecosystem services using airborne laser scanning data and forest resource maps

Forest Ecosystems

Table 1 The ESs considered in this study and expert models for deriving their reference proxy values

Abbr.	ES	Indicator, unit (citation)^a	Stand-level forest attributes used as predictors^b
BIOD	Biodiversity	Index value based on expert opinion (Lehtomäki et al. 2015)¹	Site fertility, growing stock volume, diameter, dominant species
TIMB	Timber production	Soil expectation value (SEV), €∙ha^− 1 (Pukkala 2005)²	Diameter, basal area, age, site fertility, species-specific growing stock volume, number of trees, operational environment (temperature, interest rate, timber prices)
CARB	Carbon storage	Estimated amount of carbon ³, t∙ha⁻¹ (Karjalainen and Kellomäki 1996)	Growing stock volume
BILB	Suitability for bilberry picking	Index value based on expert opinion (Ihalainen et al. 2002)	Age, basal area, height, species-specific growing stock volume, site fertility
COWB	Suitability for cowberry picking	Index value based on expert opinion (Ihalainen et al. 2002)	Age, species-specific growing stock volume, diameter, site fertility
AMEN	Visual amenity	Index value based on expert opinion (Pukkala et al. 1988)	Diameter, number of trees, species-specific growing stock volume, site fertility

^aWhen computing the values for the present study, the following details or exceptions compared to original publications were made:
¹The index values are of form diameter × volume, scaled using dominant-species-specific transformation functions (Lehtomäki et al. 2015) and maximum values of forest attributes in the study area, and multiplied by site fertility specific weights (Lehtomäki et al. 2015).
²Values of operational environment related parameters were obtained as combinations of effective temperature sum fixed to 1300 degree days, interest rates of 1%–4% and saw-wood/pulpwood prices (units in €∙m⁻³) of 30/15, 30/25, 40/15, 40/25, 40/35, 50/25, and 50/35, and the SEV was obtained as an average of these 28 combinations weighted by the proportions of species. All values were adopted from the study by Pukkala (2005).
³The estimated carbon was obtained based on conversion factors from species-specific, total stem volumes to carbon contents.
^bTo standardize the computation based on all data sets, the following simplifications or groupings were used:
-Species groups: pine, spruce, deciduous trees.
-‘Diameter’ always referred to the basal-area weighted mean diameter.