An Economic Approach to the Perception of Multiple Risks in Forests

Context and challenges

Sustainable forest management is a major global concern that is particularly impacted in developed countries due to the increasing frequency of natural hazards. In Europe, these disruptions (storms, wildfires, bark beetle infestations) have resulted in the loss of 44 million cubic meters of timber over the past twenty years, equivalent to 16% of the average annual harvest. Their frequency and intensity continue to increase due to climate change, which alters disruption patterns and contributes to complex interactions among hazards. For example, drought increases the vulnerability of trees to parasites, while bark beetle-induced mortality heightens the risk of wildfires. These cascading phenomena, whether synergistic or antagonistic, can't be fully understood by analyzing risks in isolation and require a systemic approach. Forest owners now face increased uncertainty, making their decisions heavily dependent on their perceptions of risk, their preferences, and their aversion to losses. Understanding these behavioral aspects is essential for adapting forest management to climate change. The challenge, both scientific and practical, calls for a rethinking of governance models and decision-making tools in a context of multiple and interconnected risks.

Goals

Economic literature has long examined the risk perceptions of forest owners by considering each risk individually. However, in the context of climate change, these risks become interdependent. These interactions alter the decision-making context for forest owners. Indeed, we do not yet know how to quantify and objectively assess these interdependencies, which introduces ambiguity and uncertainty into the decision-making process of the owners. Decisions are therefore guided primarily by subjective criteria such as the perception of multiple risks, preferences regarding risk and uncertainty, and loss aversion. A better understanding of these behavioral variables is therefore an essential prerequisite for adapting French forests to climate change. Improving this understanding is precisely the objective of this thesis.

In the first chapter, a review of the literature will be conducted to determine whether existing empirical and theoretical methods for addressing single risks allow for the consideration of this “multiple” dimension of risk perception. Consideration will then be given to possible adaptations or extensions of these methods. This will help inform the direction of the following two chapters. Indeed, the second chapter will be based on a survey and will identify the key variables needed to account for the perception of multiple risks in forests. These variables can then be integrated into the theoretical model in the final chapter. This will involve proposing a microeconomic theoretical framework suitable for taking into account and representing forest owners’ perception of multiple risks. The central focus of this thesis therefore lies in taking into account the interaction between risks in empirical and theoretical approaches that examine risk perception. This interaction represents a major frontier in science today and raises numerous methodological questions.

INRAE structure