Towards enhancing the carbon stocks in forests: Unravelling the wood production potentials under sustainability conditions for Austria

UNRAVEL aims at unravelling the option spaces for wood production compatible with sustainability targets. It quantifies and assesses, for Austria. UNRAVEL turns around conventional research questions that usually quantify impacts of different forest use strategies on carbon dynamics, and seeks answers to the following question: how much wood can be supplied while opti-mizing the C sink strength of forests, taking into consideration trade-offs with other ecosystem services and biodiversity? With this innovative research strategy, the project overcomes the intricacies related to the choice of appropriate reference level inherent to the mainstream approaches. It will thus unravel the option spaces for wood production compatible with sustaina-bility targets. It has the following objectives: 1. Starting from the premise that C sequestration is an urgent goal to maintain viable living conditions, quantify the wood supply potentials when optimizing the C sink strength of forests and preserving biodiversity. 2. Further develop methods and quantifying the potential for forest C sequestration in biomass and soils under expected climate change, in dependence of varying levels of forest management. 3. Derive specific targets for forest C sequestration for Austria 2070 and 2100, complying with the Paris Agreement path-ways, and identify compatible levels of wood extraction, taking global wood product chains into account and following different rationales of accounting and responsibility (extraction-based, consumption-based, income-based). 4. Assess trade-offs between forest C sequestration and wood provision, dead-wood use or conservation, or wood for en-ergy vs. wood for products, and their interlinkages with other ecosystem services such as biodiversity, and thus delineate the biophysical option space for sustainable wood use in Austria. 5. provide nuanced information on sustainable forest biomass use in the context of climate change to stakeholders.