Economic Impact of Climate Change on the Forest Sector: A Subjective Probabilistic Logic Application and Uncertainty Analysis for an Italian Case Study

Socio-economic and environmental characteristics of forests could be affected by climate change (CC) in terms of direct and indirect impacts as well as adaptation strategies in relation to local peculiarities. In such a complex systems the definition of the potential economic damage and the policy interventions needed to limit these losses is bounded to methodologies able to both analyse the problem in an integrated framework and to depict the uncertainty of the evaluation. Within these premises, the paper aims to test the Jøsang subjective probabilistic logic theory for the assessment of potential economic damage on forests due to CC. Vulnerability risk and probability of adaptation were used for the calculation of the expected damage related to Total Economic Value (TEV) without and with adaptation actions, respectively. The methodology was tested for Turkey oak (Quercus cerris L.) forests, in Tuscany (Italy). KEYWORDS