Management of multiple ecosystem services under climate change, bioeconomy and participation

Abstract

The Special Issue “Decision Support to Address Multiple Ecosystem Services in Forest Management Planning” includes nine research papers, two review papers, and a white paper presenting highlights of focused research initiatives. The papers provide a comprehensive framework for the analysis and review of advanced Decision Support Systems (DSS), which are multi-criteria decision approaches. Their emphasis is on how these methods and tools may contribute to address the multi-functionality of forests, to support scenario and trade-off analysis of ecosystem services, and to represent interests and behavior of various stakeholders. In the context of forest ecosystem management, a need has arisen to consider various dimensions in the design of the planning process. This calls for the development of appropriate mixes of decision making tools and methods and for its testing with the support of case studies. In this Special Issue, comments on, and implications of, the improvement of innovative decision methods and systems to address the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services and support scenario analysis with the active involvement of stakeholders are presented.