Adapting production forests in southern Sweden to climate change

PurposeRecent climate scenarios indicate that Sweden's southern region, Götaland, will experience significant climate change over the coming century. Swedish forestry policy guidelines emphasize the need for risk spreading to reduce the potential adverse impacts of these changes. Risk spreading is defined here as reducing the vulnerability of a social‐ecological system by increasing the heterogeneity of its ecological components. Risk spreading may be achieved through the diversification of tree species currently relied upon by the forestry sector. The purpose of this paper is to consider the capacity of the socio‐ecological forest system to adapt to climate change through the use of risk spreading.Design/methodology/approachA variety of disciplines contribute to the understanding of the rate at which risk spreading is likely to take place in a system. A synthesis is conducted to unite these insights.FindingsFive key constraints on the rate at which risk spreading can take place are identified. These include constraints imposed by the silvicultural system itself, voluntary policy measures, forest‐owner perceptions of climate change, motivation among forest owners to respond to risk, and forestry consultants. Potential future directions are discussed and include the need for specifying the goal of risk spreading policy, and the need to evaluate the motivations of those forest owners already altering adopting risk spreading approaches.Originality/valueConceptual equivalents of the “risk spreading” approach are international, due to the need for many societies to adapt social‐ecological systems to climate change. The issues raised from this case study/synthesis provide value insights regarding the breadth of systemic constraints which can thwart attempts at rapid adjustment to climate change, and where solutions to these constraints may be found.