Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

Demand for raw materials and food has long been rewarding intensive production oriented land uses, which has led to various environmental and social issues. Policies attempting to reconcile the interests and claims of different groups in society emerge from political process. Scientific research can support policy making by providing factual information and by generating and analyzing policy options. This thesis is an investigation of the prerequisites and a further development of methodologies and tools for scientific policy support concerning Non-industrial Private (NIP) land use and forest management in Sweden. Three characteristics of NIP (or small-scale, family) landownership are at the focus of the thesis: (i) spatial constraints (estate size) (Paper I), (ii) landowner behavior (Papers I, II and IV), and (iii) spatially explicit information on forest attributes and land use (Papers II and III).

Paper I assesses hypothetical scenarios of spatially targeted deciduous forest allocation strategies in the context of small scale forest ownership in southern Sweden. The study demonstrates that in order to avoid a priori unattainable policy goals, theoretical gains from spatial targeting need to be considered against the background of required landowners’ participation. Paper II analyses agricultural land-use change in Kronoberg County during 2000’s. The study shows that a significant portion of the originally reported pastures’ area has been replaced by land previously reported in other categories. Furthermore, the study indicates an overall extensification of grassland utilization in the county. Paper III presents a method for improved classification and accuracy assessment of ad-hoc categorical maps based on continuous-scale remote sensing estimates of forest variables. The method is applied in mapping deciduous dominated forests from an existing spatial dataset. Paper IV deals with a mixed, qualitative-quantitative approach to forest policy scenario construction. The paper proposes facilitating inferences of forest management configurations from assumed external factors by using a structured representation of forest management "behavioral matrix". An application example from a regional case study is provided.