Establishing dynamic climate impacts on forest ecosystem services in managed Swiss forests

Swiss forests provide numerous ecosystem services important for human livelihoods. However, their long-term development is uncertain. To date, there is little information for forestry practitioners on necessary adaptations to management strategies considering the temporal development of forests under climate change. Identifying the right time to adapt, e.g., by planting new tree species or ending the current rotation as risks to existing stands become too high, is a key challenge. The new project links research and practice through dynamic forest modeling. Using the model ForClim, temporal trends of forest structure, composition and associated ecosystem services are assessed over a wide range of Swiss forest site types, considering extreme climate events and alternative management scenarios, such as current best practice management vs. a climate-adaptive scheme that features different thinning intensities and rotation periods. These scenarios are developed in close co-operation with diverse forest stakeholders. We employ a probabilistic approach to attribute the rea-sons for the simulated changes, including climate, site properties, management, and model uncertainty. The results from this project will be made publicly available via an existing web portal external pageFORTE that will be developed further in the project by A. Gessler et al. The project is funded by the external pageNCCS and is led by scientists from the chair of Forest Ecology at ETH Zurich and WSL, and it includes diverse forest stakeholders.

Funding
Financed by the National Centre for Climate Services external pageNCCS

Status of the project
Project duration: 2022 - 2026

Contact
If you have any requests or proposals, please contact Dr. Ulrike Hiltner or Prof. Harald Bugmann.