Eskil Mattsson

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute · Natural Resources and Environmental Effects

In this study, we propose a conceptual approach to assessing biodiversity impacts in the life-cycle assessments (LCAs) of forest wood production with a focus on Nordic managed forests at the landscape level. As a basis for our methodology, we suggest assessing the proportion of the total land area of productive forest under the control of a forest...

In tropical forests, several studies have explored the effects of environmental factors and tree species diversity as well as functional trait diversity and trait composition on aboveground biomass (AGB) stock. However, these abiotic and biotic effects on individual biomass variability (BioVar) are still largely unexplored, which limits our underst...

Data capturing multiple axes of tree size and shape, such as a tree's stem diameter, height and crown size, underpin a wide range of ecological research - from developing and testing theory on forest structure and dynamics, to estimating forest carbon stocks and their uncertainties, and integrating remote sensing imagery into forest monitoring prog...

As compared to temperate and boreal forests, the majority of tropical forests are biodiverse, structurally-complex and high-functioning ecosystems, yet their potential attributes are vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances and environmental factors. Here, we hypothesize that the biological, structural and functional attributes of tropical forests...

Approaches for evaluating integrated sustainability impacts in forest management enable the harmonization of environmental, social, and economic considerations. Here, we present a methodological framework for quantifying and balancing impacts on widely different aspects of sustainability of different future scenarios for forestry in managed forests...

The purpose of this policy brief is to highlight Nordic solutions aligned with the global stocktake (GST) decision, to both support and inspire the Nordic countries and other nations in accelerating action towards 1.5 °C pathways by scaling existing solutions. It’s based upon the main project report which identifies and showcases 13 Nordic climate...

Forest plays a vital role in the global biogeochemical cycles through a high rate of carbon sequestration and harboring biodiversity. However, local species diversity is declining while also becoming increasingly homogenized across communities. Although effects of local biotic processes (e.g., species α -diversity and stand structural heterogeneity...

In this report, we map and review knowledge about the environmental effects from electric power transmission and electricity storage methods within the Swedish electrical power grid.

Tropical forests play a main role in the global carbon cycle due to their higher exchange capacity of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere than any other forest type on the Earth. In this study, we aimed to explore the relative importance of foremost species and topmost trees in shaping forest structure, diversity and biomass in natural tropical fore...

ntroduction and aims In Sri Lanka, homegarden agroforestry systems cover about 13 percent of the land area and constitute a majority of Sri Lanka’s total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri Lankan homegardens are considered desirable and sustainable land-use systems that produce a multitude of ecosystem services, their role in food secur...

Recently, there has been growing interest in agroforestry systems due to their great potential to mitigate threats to household food and nutrition security from soaring food prices but also as carbon sinks. In Sri Lanka, smallholder farms such as homegardens constitute a majority of Sri Lanka’s total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri L...

A growing world population and rapid expansion of cities increase the pressure on basic resources such as water, food and energy. To safeguard the provision of these resources, restoration and sustainable management of landscapes is pivotal, including sustainable forest and water management. Sustainable forest management includes forest conservatio...

Recent studies have advanced our understanding regarding the niche complementarity and mass ratio effects on the ecosystem function, in both natural and experimental systems. However, biodiversity – ecosystem function (BEF) relationships may be fundamentally different across dense-wooded and light-wooded species, as they are clustered at two opposi...

Focal Brief 2017:01 Agroforestry and other types of multifunctional land-use systems have increasingly been highlighted as win-win-win solutions to meet the challenges of climate change, agricultural intensification, secure ecosystem services as well as support to food security. In this brief the authors seek in the literature for evidence and info...

Key messages 1. In terms of homegardens and food security, the indirect effects such as adaptation to climate change or a variety of ecosystem services such as increased carbon uptake, better rainfall in ltration capacity and reduced erosion are the most commonly assessed (51%) impacts in the literature. 2. Homegardens in Sri Lanka are the poor lan...

The biodiversity – aboveground biomass relationship has been intensively studied in recent decades. However, no consensus has been arrived to consider the interplay of species diversity, and intraspecific and interspecific tree size variation in driving aboveground biomass, after accounting for the effects of plot size heterogeneity, soil fertility...

Sri Lanka's natural forests are rich in biological diversity and endemic species of flora and fauna and are critical for soil conservation, watershed and flood control. The conservation, protection and sustainable management of these forests has motivated Sri Lanka to engage in REDD+ activities through the UN-REDD program. Another important land us...

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity, and we are only starting to address it. Climate change scenarios indicate that poor people in developing countries will be particularly negatively affected, e.g. by increased temperature reducing their harvests or flooding due to sea-level rise and extreme weather events. There are also expe...

This brief is based on the workshop “Can agroforestry address food security concerns in a changing climate?” held at Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden in November 2014. The workshop brought together leading scholars-practitioners from five parts of the world - Sweden, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Ecuador - to share knowledge of and...

The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) Swedish Water House (SWH) Cluster Group for Water and Forests started with a mission to highlight the importance of forests and sustainable forest management to securing water resources globally. We have concluded that establishing resilient landscapes is the most promising way forward and that Swe...

Accurate and timely maps of tree cover attributes are important tools for environmental research and natural resource management. We evaluate the utility of Landsat 8 for mapping tree canopy cover (TCC) and aboveground biomass (AGB) in a woodland landscape in Burkina Faso. Field data and WorldView-2 imagery were used to assemble the reference datas...

Homegarden agroforestry systems are suggested to hold a large potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is due to their multifunctional role in providing income, food and ecosystem services while decreasing pressure on natural forests and hence saving and storing carbon. In this paper, above-ground biomass carbon and tree species...

A s one of the leading near-term options for global climate change mitigation, REDD+ has been piloted in over 300 subnational initiatives across the tropics. This book describes 23 of those initiatives in six countries: Brazil, Peru, Cameroon, Tanzania, Indonesia and Vietnam. These initiatives were selected in large part because they had defined th...

Shifts in global land use have led to loss of biodiversity, land degradation and declines in ecosystem services. In many geographical areas the deterioration is currently at a near catastrophic scale and the impact is huge both in terms of food production and deforestation. If managed correctly, ecological restoration can offer a chance to reverse...

Tropical homegardens hold a large potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation due to their multi-functional role in providing income and ecosystem services while decreasing pressure on natural forests. However, there is still lack of quantitative data on homegardens and their landscape potential for carbon sequestration services. In this...

This brief explores the value of an agroforestry approach to home gardens, incorporating multiple layers of trees, shrubs and crops, in the context of nutrition and food security. Home gardens have been vital to human societies for thousands of years: from clusters of beneficial trees and shrubs planted on forest edges in pre-historic times, to the...

This brief examines how agroforestry approaches – growing trees with crops, and sometimes with animals – can advance land restoration and conservation while also strengthening livelihoods. Roughly 24% of the world’s land area is degrading, including more than a fifth of the cropland and nearly a third of the forests – yet 1.5 billion people directl...

This paper explores the concept of homegardens and their potential functions as strategic elements in land-use planning, and adaptation and mitigation to climate change in Sri Lanka. The ancient and locally adapted agroforestry system of homegardens is presently estimated to occupy nearly 15 % of the land area in Sri Lanka and is described in the s...

As a developing island nation, Sri Lanka is vulnerable to the possible impacts of climate change. The land use and forestry sector accounts for a large part of Sri Lanka’s greenhouse gas emissions and can play a major part of Sri Lanka’s strategy to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Data and information on land use and forests in terms of area...

In this Focali report we aim to assess and evaluate historic and current changes in land use and forestry at the national and sub-national level in Sri Lanka. Different drivers, policies and data related to forest and land use will be assessed to explore factors that have contributed to changes.

By using an integrated approach, tsunami affected land, vegetation and inhabitants were assessed to evaluate the potential to restore and protect coastal land in the context of Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism in Hambantota district in the south-eastern part of Sri Lanka. Firstly, assessments of the status of the tsunami affected area w...

With this issue of ETFRN News, containing more than 20 wide-ranging articles on forests and climate change, we wish to contribute to the discussion on the potential role of forests and forest management in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The objective of this report is to explore the topic of carbon sinks in forest ecosystems, focusing on the issue of REDD. The report covers different angles: i) an overview of existing financial and methodological initiatives that currently invest in preparation and capacity building of potential REDD host countries, but also in REDD pilot projects...

LESSONS LEARNED This assessment is based exclusively on the Norad commissioned evaluations of NICFI’s investments and activities. It does not claim to include a comprehensive list of learning experiences from REDD+ interventions. The multilateral initiatives such as the FCPF and UN- REDD are in a constant process of learning which has not been incl...