Resilient Forest Landscapes

Forest management deals with different problems at different scales. On a landscape level, species mixtures, mill access, economic and ecological considerations as well as social impacts have to be taken into account. A crucial aspect in this assessment is the concept of risk and how different types and severities of forest disturbances such as pests, disease and fire might impact the future yield of forests as a whole.

This project aims to design forest landscapes resilient to bio-physical stressors, taking into account social and economic realities. We are developing an approach for the inclusion of abiotic and biotic disturbances and their associated risks under current and future conditions into forest planning tools.

Using spatially explicit climate layers and monitoring tools in concert with enhanced forest inventory information we review potential disturbances and climatic threats. We integrate an array of silvicultural prescriptions, species mixes (in mixed stands), and the deliberate introduction of migrating and exotic tree species, as well as thinning and other techniques in modelling scenarios. This approach helps us to identify trade-offs between increasing landscape resilience to these disturbances vs the expected productivity of the landscape in terms of a range of goods and services the forest landscape does provide.