Forest Studio
Advancing Integrated Forest Management with Forest Studio
Background
Forests today face an unprecedented mix of pressures—climate change, increasing disturbance risks, competing land uses, and shifting societal demands. Managing them sustainably requires tools that can integrate ecological processes, human decisions, and long-term uncertainties across different spatial and governance scales. This is where simulation models become essential.
Project aim
We are building Forest Studio, a new modular simulation tool designed to support integrated forest management in this complex and changing context. Still under development, Forest Studio aims to project forest dynamics under climate change, natural disturbances, and diverse management strategies—providing a flexible platform to explore future forest trajectories and evaluate the consequences of different choices.
What makes Forest Studio especially powerful is its modular design. This allows us to expand the model incrementally—from simple, yield-table-based growth formulations to more complex representations that will include disturbance interactions, and management adaptive responses.
Impact
Forest Studio is being designed to operate across multiple spatial and decision-making levels—from individual trees and forest stands to enterprises, landscapes, and regions. This makes it suitable for both strategic planning and policy support, as well as applied forest management.
Importantly, it’s also a learning platform. We will soon use Forest Studio in the classroom to give students hands-on experience with forest dynamics, allowing them to engage with real-world uncertainties, trade-offs, and system feedbacks.
Development is ongoing—but even in its current state, Forest Studio is becoming a key tool for rethinking how we simulate, manage, and teach about forests in a rapidly changing world.
Project lead
Dr. Olalla Díaz-Yáñez & Prof. Verena Griess, ETH Zurich
Collaborators:
Marie Doyle, University College Dublin
Contact