WP6 integrates a large amount of data compiled and developed by other WPs in IBC-Carbon. These include spatial data about distributions of plants and animals living in our forests, information about distributions and ecological condition of major environment types, maps of carbon storage and sequestration both above and below ground, other ecosystem services, land cost, etc. WP6 utilizes these data to answer three major goals.
(i) To develop methods for the simultaneous maintenance and conservation of biodiversity and carbon in Finnish forests. New ways of combining existing data will be developed, which will be of utility in, for example, land use planning. This work will develop from prior international studies implemented using the Zonation approach for ecologically based land use planning.
(ii) Identification of forest areas suitable as ecological compensation. Biodiversity offsetting (ecological compensation) is about replacement of biodiversity and ecosystem services that are lost due to construction or infrastructure projects or other ecologically harmful activity. In this work methods and GIS analyses will be developed for the evaluation of the suitability of different forest areas as an offset. This work builds on a recently published report about the twelve operationally important decisions in biodiversity offsetting.
(iii) Advanced spatial analyses to support land use planning, including zoning. These will combine biodiversity and carbon layers, but also additional data about factors such as ecosystem services, climate change, land cost etc. This work builds on both international work done using Zonation and on local analyses already implemented for the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council (Uudenmaan liitto).
Methods and analyses developed in WP6 can be used to support decisions about forest management in the context of biodiversity conservation, zoning, and bio-economy.