Presented by: Dr. David Turner, OSU Forest Ecosystems and Society
November 5, 2014, Kidder Hall, OSU
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Abstract:
As the potential magnitude of
anthropogenically-driven climate change becomes clearer, it is increasingly
desirable to anticipate impacts of projected climate change on forest
ecosystems and forest landscapes. Notable impacts of climate change on forests
will include alteration of the disturbance regime, changes in tree species
composition, and shifts in the geographic distribution of vegetation types.
These potential impacts have been studied using climate change scenarios and a
variety of empirical or process-based modeling approaches, but projections of
climate change impacts have generally not included the role of land use. For
the Willamette Water 2100 Project, we have applied an agent-based landscape
simulation model (Envision) to assess potential climate change impacts in the
Willamette River Basin (WRB). Envision accounts for harvesting, fire, and land
use change. To incorporate climate change impacts, we have integrated it with
results from a dynamic global vegetation model (MC2), driven by climate
scenarios developed for the 5th IPCC report. Our goal is to evaluate the
sensitivity of forest area, biogeography, rates of fire, rates of harvest, and
forest age class distribution to three climate change scenarios. The related
influences on basin-wide evapotranspiration are also being simulated and are of
interest in evaluating the future WRB water budget.
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