The purpose of the Coast Information Team (CIT) economic gain spatial analyses (EGSAs) was to identify priority areas for economic development for each of five sectors of the CIT analysis area on the coast of British Columbia. Cortex undertook the analysis for the timber sector. The objective of EGSA-Timber was to assign values derived from the harvesting and sale of timber to landscape units and to summarize these values at the subregional level for alternative management scenarios.

Services: Cortex developed a forest-level model that forecasts timber production and tracks changes in the landbase according to specified management objectives. It then used this model to generate time series of indicators of timber value attributable to each site under various scenarios of alternative management assumptions and objectives.

Five scenarios are analyzed for each CIT subregion in this study—a composite of the TSR Base Case scenarios of the constituent management units (TSAs and TFLs), a Financial Efficiency scenario that assumes base case management but maximizes the discounted cash flow from harvesting, and three scenarios applying Ecosystem-based Management Planning Handbook (EBMPH) assumptions. The EBMPH scenarios all allow up to (i.e., less than or equal to) low environmental risk at the subregional level and intermediate risk at the landscape level. The North Coast and Haida Gwaii scenarios allow high environmental risk at the watershed level. The watershed-level risk was not modelled for the Central Coast subregion as the appropriate watershed coverage was not included in the study’s landbase dataset. The three EBMPH scenarios analyzed for each region differ in that they allow low, intermediate, and high levels of risk at the stand level.

Outcomes: The indicators of timber value calculated for each landscape and summed for the three CIT regions are summarized in the project report, and subsequently mapped onto the productive forest landbase. Two key inputs to this study, the forest resource and wood cost data, are also mapped on the productive forest landbase. The project report and maps are available from the CIT Website.

The results of the project, plus additional scenario analysis with the EGSA-Timber model, informed the Central Coast LRMP Planning Table regarding land use and timber harvesting levels. The database and model have since been extended and used by the government agencies to analyze the impacts (socioeconomic and environmental) of land use decisions on the coast of British Columbia.