Biomass Resource Assessment Part I - Gainesville Regional Utilities

3. TASK 2: SUSTAINABILITY IMPACTS FROM LAND-USE CHANGE3.1. BackgroundA significant concern is the future availability and sustainability of the woody biomassresource base. The population in Florida is expected to grow 59% by 2030. The amount ofincreased development associated with this growth will likely reduce the forestland base fromwhich thinnings and logging debris are derived. However, the trend in Florida and throughoutthe southeast is an increase in forest plantations and annual growth rates which increases biomassavailability. Increasing population and development also increases the amount of urban woodwaste available. In this analysis, we use projections of population, pulpwood stumpage prices,and forestland use change in Florida from the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Forest ResourceAssessment (SFRA, Wear and Greis 2002). The baseline year for the FIA data used in the reportwas 1995. This study represents the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of forest resourceuses and trends in the US South. An update document to the 2000 Assessment is Wear et al.(2007), which describes market conditions in the forest sector since 2000. Starting around thatyear, there was a dramatic decline in stumpage prices, for pulpwood specifically, due todeclining paper production capacity combined with increasing timber inventories in the South.Stumpage prices declined some 50% from their highs in the late 1990’s. Considering the resultsof this report, the findings in the 2000 Assessment are probably somewhat overestimated withrespect to the overall strength of the southern pulpwood timber market. Importantly, the reportfound that there was no indication that domestic demand for southern pulpwood, nor stumpageprices for pulpwood, were expected to increase significantly in the near term.3.2. ScenariosThe 2000 Assessment makes projections to 2040 of total timberland, timberland by managementtype, timber removals for softwoods and hardwoods, and stumpage prices in each of the southernstates to 2040. Stumpage price changes are in real (excluding inflation) terms. The 2000Assessment includes a base case scenario and what we will call a conservative scenario. Thebase case scenario projects more land being converted to pine plantations74