Sustainable forest management for bioenergy

Biomass from the forest sector can be an important source of renewable energy and can contribute to climate change mitigation and bioenergy development. However, the removal of biomass from forests can have significant impacts on the forest ecosystems and therefore requires a thorough analysis. The purpose of this work is to compare different alternatives of sustainable forest management with the aim of minimizing greenhouse gases emission. The model used for the analysis, CO2FIX, describes the flows of carbon per unit area of biomass, soil storage and bioenergy products. The model was applied to the forests of the Italian region of Lombardy. We identified four macro-categories: coniferous, deciduous, mixed coniferous and deciduous forests, short rotation forests. For each macro-category, we ran a simulation, with an annual time step for a hundred years horizon, of various management policies: no harvest activities, maintenance of a constant stock, different rotation lengths, maximization of harvested biomass. We identified the most efficient management policy for each macro-category in terms of carbon emissions saved and carbon sequestered. Over the entire region, it emerges that the potential contribution to climate change mitigation amounts to about 1.5 million tons of CO2eq per year, equal to about 15% of the total reduction needed to meet Kyoto Protocol targets in the region.