Ghasemi, E., Ghotb, S., Coupland, K., and Paradis, G. Developing a decision support system to assess forest management scenarios as a nature-based decarbonization solution: A case study from a mining company in British Columbia, Canada. Manuscript in preparation.
Project
Mitacs, Newmont, and forestry decarbonization modelling
A Mitacs Accelerate industrial postdoc project with Newmont on forest-management scenarios as nature-based decarbonization options for the mining sector.
This project explored how forest management and forest-sector modelling can inform nature-based decarbonization options for mining-sector decision makers.
The work connected mining-sector net-zero planning, voluntary carbon-market quality concerns, forest carbon modelling, and ecosystem-service indicators in a prototype decision-support framework.
The project was structured as a Mitacs Accelerate Industrial Postdoc internship with Newmont as the industry partner. FRESH contributed forest-sector modelling, scenario design, and interpretation of forestry-based climate and ecosystem-service outcomes.
The research compared forest-management scenarios through indicators including carbon stock, net emissions, old-growth area, species diversity, revenue, and jobs. The intent was decision support: helping decision makers understand tradeoffs among forest management, climate mitigation, biodiversity, and economic outcomes rather than presenting a deployed operational planning system.
A follow-on manuscript is in preparation from the final project report under the working title Developing a decision support system to assess forest management scenarios as a nature-based decarbonization solution: A case study from a mining company in British Columbia, Canada.
Status
- Past applied research project
People And Roles
- Elaheh Ghasemi: postdoctoral researcher and manuscript lead
- Salar Ghotb: collaborator
- Kathleen Coupland: collaborator
- Gregory Paradis: supervisor and FRESH lead
Collaborators And Partners
- Mitacs Accelerate
- Newmont
- UBC mining-sector collaboration context
Outputs
- Prototype decision-support framework for comparing forest management scenarios
- Forest carbon and ecosystem-service indicator modelling workflows
- Scenario outputs for carbon stock, net emissions, old-growth area, species diversity, revenue, and jobs
- Final technical report for project partners
- Journal manuscript in preparation based on the project report