Wood is one of the key provisioning ecosystem services that forests deliver, serving as a source of energy, building materials and the basis for countless goods. Under the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services, wood belongs to the provisioning section and is divided into classes for fibre and material production or energy production, depending on its final use. In this study, the researchers treated wood as a single service encompassing fibre, material and energy uses. The team chose Europe as their study area because it is one of the major suppliers and users of wood resources in the global market, and because it exemplifies a paradox: forest cover has expanded by roughly nine percent since the 1990s, yet the condition of Europe’s forests has deteriorated under combined human and natural pressures, including steadily rising wood consumption that is projected to increase by 25 to 45 percent globally by 2050 compared to 2020.

To disentangle this picture, the study leaned on the ecosystem service cascade model, which distinguishes between potential, supply and demand as separate but interconnected elements. Potential refers to the hypothetical maximum yield that is rarely fully utilised, in this case represented by forests where no social, environmental or economic restrictions would affect current or potential wood supply. Supply, sometimes called the ecosystem service flow, describes the amount of the mobilised service in time and space, proxied here by actual annual wood production statistics. Demand, a socio-economically focused element, captures the need to consume a service, estimated from national wood consumption data adjusted by regional population figures. The researchers stress that supply and demand are independent variables of the cascade, not equal to each other and not simply the total standing biomass of a forest.

The technical machinery behind the mapping was a GIS-based space-time cube, a tool that combines statistical analysis with map visualisation to evaluate variations in data over space and time simultaneously. The team built cubes from polygon locations corresponding to 25 countries and 2,018 regional administrative units, using annual time steps between 2008 and 2018. Supply data came from national and regional wood production statistics, distributed across regions using forest cover information derived from CORINE Land Cover datasets for 2006, 2012 and 2018. Protected areas with a status that most likely does not allow wood supply, such as strict nature reserves, wilderness areas and national parks, were excluded from the forest cover to improve accuracy. Demand data were derived from UNECE annual wood consumption figures, calculated by adding imports and subtracting exports from domestic production, then multiplied by per capita consumption and regional population counts.

At the continental scale, the results showed gradual increases across the board. European wood ecosystem service potential has been rising throughout the period, aligning with previous findings that forest resources have grown in recent decades. Total wood supply also increased, with the greatest rise observed from 2015 onwards, while demand showed a slight upward trend each year since 2009 and a change trend stronger than that of supply. Notably, overall supply was higher than demand across Europe and grew faster, with supply increasing by around 16 percent between the first and last years of the study period, compared with roughly 10 percent for demand. The researchers also observed the fingerprint of the 2008 economic crisis, with both supply and demand dropping in 2009 before steadily recovering, a reminder that socio-economic shocks can leave visible traces in ecosystem service data.

The spatial distribution told a story of concentration in central and northern Europe. Countries including Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Sweden and the Baltic States showed the greatest wood ecosystem service potential, and these same countries were the largest producers based on mean supply values. Regionally, high supply appeared in southern and south-eastern Finland and Sweden, southern Germany, across Austria, Slovenia, the French region of Aquitaine and parts of northern Portugal. Demand, by contrast, concentrated in large population centres and in areas where the wood industry plays a significant economic role, with the highest levels in southern regions of Finland, Sweden, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as major cities and capitals such as Paris, Lisbon and Riga. Some countries, including Poland, Hungary, Ireland and especially Portugal, were particularly over-supplied relative to their potential.

Perhaps the most striking findings emerged from the temporal trend analysis at national and regional scales. Using the Mann-Kendall trend test, a rank correlation analysis that detects statistically significant increases or decreases over time, the researchers found that wood potential grew in most European countries, while supply and demand changes were more country-specific. The strongest upward trends in supply, at 99 percent confidence, characterised Poland, Sweden, Spain and Denmark, while demand rose in Latvia, Estonia, Portugal and Hungary. Regionally, increasing supply dominated in central and southern Sweden, Poland, Ireland, parts of France and northern and western Spain, while decreases appeared in single regions including southern Spain, northern Italy, southern Sweden and a few regions in France, Germany and Greece. Interestingly, some of the declining regions were also important supply hubs, including parts of southern Sweden and French Aquitaine, hinting at possible local intensification followed by depletion.

The upward trends in supply and demand carry potential consequences that extend beyond the timber sector. The researchers point to a range of drivers: environmental factors such as forest cover, accessibility and terrain, alongside socio-economic forces including policy, environmental law and bio-economy strategies. Locally, supply can intensify after extreme weather events or species diseases, such as bark beetle outbreaks, which force salvage harvesting. Demand is driven mainly by population size, urbanisation, income changes, technological development, policy and the availability of alternative materials. The promotion of renewable energy sources during Europe’s green transition is expected to further increase demand for wood as a fuel. While the steady increase in wood potential could be read as a positive signal for climate change mitigation, since forests are among the most effective carbon sinks, simultaneous growth in supply and demand may undermine goals of increasing carbon storage and can reduce habitat quality, connectivity and the capacity of forests to provide cultural services and non-wood products.

The study also demonstrates the importance of scale in ecosystem service mapping. Broad-scale assessments help identify general patterns and trends, but analysing data at finer regional resolution provides more comprehensive insights for identifying areas that may require targeted action for sustainable forest management. The researchers acknowledge limitations: their supply data rely on officially reported harvest statistics, meaning illegal logging was not captured, and the analysis did not consider differences in tree species, growth cycles, monocultures or country-specific management techniques. They also note that demand could be understood differently, for example by including the forest industry chain, though here it was deliberately analysed from the perspective of the end consumer. The study did not measure the sustainability level of the observed trends, leaving open the question of what level of service use is actually sustainable.

Nevertheless, the decade-long picture offers a valuable addition to existing European assessments, which have typically relied on single-year snapshots or different definitions of wood supply and demand. By showing that potential, supply and demand can all increase in the same area, and that low supply and demand do not guarantee wood potential growth, the study underscores the need to consider a broader range of cascade components when assessing change. The researchers suggest that establishing conservation plans for areas where supply and demand are not in long-term balance, together with biodiversity assessments, could be a step towards achieving the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy 2030. As Europe’s green transition positions wood at the heart of the bioeconomy, continuous spatio-temporal monitoring of forest ecosystem services may prove essential for ensuring that rising wood exploitation does not quietly erode the very ecosystems on which it depends.

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Subject of Research: Mapping ecosystem service temporal trends: a case study of European wood potential, supply and demand between 2008 and 2018

Article Title: Mapping ecosystem service temporal trends: a case study of European wood potential, supply and demand between 2008 and 2018

Article References: Poturalska, A., Alahuhta, J., Kangas, K., & Ala-Hulkko, T. (2024). Mapping ecosystem service temporal trends: a case study of European wood potential, supply and demand between 2008 and 2018. One Ecosystem, 9, Article e118263. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.9.e118263

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/oneeco.9.e118263

Keywords: Mapping, ecosystem, service, temporal, trends, case, European, wood, potential, supply, demand, between