Upscale
Nowcasting, forecasting, upscaling - Novel avenues for forest vitality monitoring and anticipating forest dynamics (UPSCALE). An SNSF-Sinergia funded project (2024-2028)
Background
Forests provide many ecological, economic, and climatic benefits, but they are highly vulnerable to climate extremes. Climate-driven forest health degradation and tree mortality caused by drought and heat stress have been observed worldwide and are expected to increase with ongoing climate warming. Hence, there is a clear need to identify forest ecosystems that are most vulnerable to these changes and understand why some ecosystems are more sensitive to extremes than others. It is critical to know well in advance where (and why) these changes will occur to develop policies and adaptive management strategies that will ensure a sustainable supply of goods and services that our society needs.
Project aim
With a bridging of methods and disciplines, we aim to obtain integrated early warning signals for detecting health decline and mortality in trees and forests across spatial scales (from the tree to the landscape scale). To achieve this, we will link high spatial and temporal resolution remote sensed data with traditional ground-based forest monitoring data, novel close-to-real time tree and ecosystem level assessments, and belowground information to identify key proxies of forest drought stress, tree health, and mortality risk.
Through a participatory approach with stakeholders such as foresters, forest owners or local authorities, we will create an interactive web-based platform targetted to their needs. This will help them make better decisions when it comes to silvicultural and forest management planning activities, ensuring a sustainable provision of forest goods and ecosystem services under future climate conditions.
Project lead
- Prof. Verena Griess, Forest Resources Management, ETH Zurich
- Prof. Arthur Gessler, Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
- Christian Ginzler, Remote Sensing, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
- Prof. Christian Pohl, TdLab, ETH Zurich
Project partners
- Dr. Mirela Beloiu Schwenke, Forest Resources Management, ETH Zurich
- Prof. Andrea Carminati, Physics of Soils and Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zurich
- Dr. J. Jelle Lever, Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
- Dr. Eva Lieberherr, Natural Resource Policy, ETH Zurich
- Dr. Katrin Meusburger, Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
- Dr. Lars Waser, Remote Sensing, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
- Dr. Roman Zweifel, Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Project start
1 February 2024
Contact
Ariane Hangartner, project manager (ariane.hangartner(at)usys.ethz.ch)
Funding
SNSF-Sinergia Grant n°216562 (2024-2028)