2021222324252623 of 55
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Geospatial assessment of forest ecosystem services: operationalizing scale through spatially adaptive modelling
Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, Solsona, Spain.
Karlstad University, Faculty of Health, Science and Technology (starting 2013), Department of Environmental and Life Sciences (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0001-2058
University of Eastern Finland, School of Forest Sciences, Joensuu, Finland.
Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, Solsona, Spain.
Show others and affiliations
2026 (English)In: Ecosystem Services, E-ISSN 2212-0416, Vol. 81, article id 101896Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Forest ecosystem services (ES) emerge across multiple spatiotemporal scales, are context-dependent, and often display non-linear dynamics. Yet, ES assessments often rely on global statistical methods applied to predefined spatial units, limiting their ability to capture context-specific interactions at the scales at which they emerge. Addressing this gap is critical for integrating ES into planning and management, particularly in multifunctional forest landscapes. Here, we demonstrate how geographically weighted machine learning with adaptive kernels can be used to identify the spatial scales at which individual ES are most strongly expressed, reveal their underlying non-linear drivers, and capture interactions among ES operating at different scales. Focusing on montane and subalpine forests in Catalonia (northeast Spain), we assessed four forest ES indicators: biomass production, fire risk, mushroom production, and scenic beauty, empirically quantified based on the 399 permanent plots with the presence of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), black pine (Pinus nigra), mountain pine (Pinus uncinata), and European silver fir (Abies alba), re-measured in the three cycles of the Spanish National Forest Inventory spanning 1989 to 2015. We first identified dominant global drivers of each ES using the Random Forest (RF) algorithm and then applied Geographically weighted Random Forest (GRF) to capture spatial heterogeneity in ES-driver relationships. Local scales were defined as the spatial extents that maximized model performance. These scales were subsequently employed in spatially weighted non-parametric correlation analyses to assess ES interactions. Our results reveal scale and driver dependency: ES dominated by a single structural driver, such as biomass production and fire risk, operated at broader spatial scales and exhibited relatively consistent interaction patterns, whereas services shaped by multiple co-dominant drivers, such as mushroom production and scenic beauty, displayed localized, heterogeneous patterns. By employing geographically weighted adaptive kernels, our framework captured both global and local ES relationships, demonstrating its value for multi-scale assessments, that can effectively aid geographically oriented forest management planning. Future work will expand the observational domain, thereby enhancing machine learning applications for spatially explicit forest ES analyses.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2026. Vol. 81, article id 101896
Keywords [en]
ES dynamics, Multi-scale interactions, Local statistics, Geographically weighted random forest, Adaptive kernel, TRADE-OFFS, FRAMEWORK, CATALONIA, PATTERNS, GROWTH, LEVEL, CLASSIFICATION, MANAGEMENT, SYNERGIES, CAPACITY
National Category
Forest Science Ecology
Research subject
Geomatics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-112080DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2026.101896ISI: 001846310700001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105046834798OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-112080DiVA, id: diva2:2094590
Available from: 2026-08-24 Created: 2026-08-24 Last updated: 2026-08-24Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(5063 kB)9 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 5063 kBChecksum SHA-512
fdd474b16ccdf6602bf7fa4bf8c4c21900c9841dc5e560d967309d74ad97cc717103b180a460a62a180619003982619a2310360f74d45fb6dd1d399eabcdc713
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Georganos, Stefanos

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Georganos, Stefanos
By organisation
Department of Environmental and Life Sciences (from 2013)
In the same journal
Ecosystem Services
Forest ScienceEcology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 80 hits
2021222324252623 of 55
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf