Publications

Climate change and disturbance events pose a major challenge to the management of mountain forests. In the context of a close-to-nature forest management, increasing management intensity (INC strategy) could reduce susceptibility to disturbance, but little is known about the trade-offs with biodiversity and ecosystem service provision at the forest enterprise level. In this study, the effects of different management intensities on susceptibility to windthrow and bark beetles disturbances were investigated using a decision support system (DSS). The DSS was applied to a case study area in the Dischma valley near Davos (1350 ha, part of the Davos forest enterprise), and simulations of forest development were conducted for the period from 2010 to 2100 under historical climate and climate change scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). In addition, indicators for biodiversity (structural and tree species diversity, amount of deadwood, number of habitat trees) and ecosystem services (timber production, recreation, carbon storage, and protection from avalanches and rockfall) were included. The results of the case study showed that the INC strategy reduced susceptibility to disturbance from windthrow and bark beetles. However, the effect on bark beetle susceptibility was relatively small compared to the amplifying effect of climate change under the RCP8.5 scenario. The INC strategy resulted in an increase in recreational function and timber production as well as trade-offs with carbon storage and protection against gravitational hazards. Furthermore, a positive relationship between the improvement in biodiversity indicators and the decrease in disturbance susceptibility was found, which was mainly due to an increase in structural diversity and tree species diversity. Our results indicate a substantial increase in disturbance susceptibility under an RCP8.5 climate change scenario, which poses a major challenge for forest planning. Decision support systems can help to balance climate change adaptation and disturbance susceptibility with biodiversity enhancement and ecosystem service provision in complex planning situations. © 2023, Schweizerischer Forstverein. All rights reserved.

Climate change severely affects mountain forests and their ecosystem services, e.g., by altering disturbance regimes. Increasing timber harvest (INC) via a close-to-nature forestry may offer a mitigation strategy to reduce disturbance predisposition. However, little is known about the efficiency of this strategy at the scale of forest enterprises and potential trade-offs with biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES). We applied a decision support system which accounts for disturbance predisposition and BES indicators to evaluate the effect of different harvest intensities and climate change scenarios on windthrow and bark beetle predisposition in a mountain forest enterprise in Switzerland. Simulations were carried out from 2010 to 2100 under historic climate and climate change scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). In terms of BES, biodiversity (structural and tree species diversity, deadwood amount) as well as timber production, recreation (visual attractiveness), carbon sequestration, and protection against gravitational hazards (rockfall, avalanche and landslides) were assessed. The INC strategy reduced disturbance predisposition to windthrow and bark beetles. However, the mitigation potential for bark beetle disturbance was relatively small (− 2.4%) compared to the opposite effect of climate change (+ 14% for RCP8.5). Besides, the INC strategy increased the share of broadleaved species and resulted in a synergy with recreation and timber production, and a trade-off with carbon sequestration and protection function. Our approach emphasized the disproportionally higher disturbance predisposition under the RCP8.5 climate change scenario, which may threaten currently unaffected mountain forests. Decision support systems accounting for climate change, disturbance predisposition, and BES can help coping with such complex planning situations. © 2023, The Author(s).

The spruce bark beetle (spruce bark beetle) (Ips typographus) is one of the major disturbance agents in European forests. Damage by spruce bark beetle is expected to increase in the future, as a result of e.g. increased temperatures. However, not all forest stands are equally vulnerable. Therefore, describing the relative difference in susceptibility of different forest stands to spruce bark beetle infestation and to try to estimate changes in susceptibility under different management or climate scenarios is necessary to support decision making on forest management. We present a spruce bark beetle susceptibility index, which describes the relative susceptibility of forest stands to spruce bark beetle infestation. The index is based on empirical findings and expert opinion, and takes both climatic and stand variables into account. The index can be implemented in forest simulation programs. The susceptibility index was implemented in Heureka, a forest decision support system. To demonstrate the use of the index, simulations were run for three management scenarios: baseline; even-aged management focused on conifers, longer rotation: same as baseline but with longer rotation periods and mixed forest: same as baseline but retaining a higher share of broadleaves. For this purpose, an area of 2451 ha consisting of 751 stands was used. The index value per stand per five-year time period was obtained from the simulations. The index was calculated individually, per management strategy, for all 751 stands and thereafter mean index and harvest volume was obtained for the whole area. Mean susceptibility was higher, and harvest slightly lower, in the longer rotation scenario, compared with the baseline, while there were no differences between baseline and mixed. At individual stand level, the differences are more nuanced and, for example, certain stands have lower susceptibility in the mixed compared with the baseline scenario. The ability to simulate forest development and simultaneously get a measure of spruce bark beetle susceptibility will enable forest owners to identify vulnerable stands and evaluate effects of different management decisions to reduce the risk for future economic losses. © 2022

Demands for water services from forested watersheds have dramatically increased since the 1950s and the trend continues as global environmental change intensifies in the 21st century. The goal of this study is to provide an overview of existing hydrological modeling tools that can be used in watershed management in a forest environment, offer guidance of model uses, and identify knowledge gaps in model development and applications. We classify 47 selected hydrological models according to their development purposes, theories, functionalities, and potentials to be applied in Decision Support Systems (DSS) for addressing five emerging watershed management challenges. We found that generic field, forest stand, and watershed-scale hydrological models developed in the 1980s–1990s are readily available for being incorporated into DSS for projecting hydrological responses to climate and land cover changes and address other watershed management problems. However, these models rarely explicitly link forest structure and species-level information to hydrological processes and functions, thus have limited utilities to answer specific forest management questions. Since early 2000s, hydrological models have incorporated energy, vegetation, terrain, and ecohydrological processes to begin to answer questions at hillslope to regional scales. However, routine uses of advanced modeling tools in forest watershed decision making remain challenging. Future model development should integrate multiple stressors and fine scale ecosystem and surface processes (e.g., vegetation dynamics, energy partitioning, and biogeochemical cycling), and balance model complexity, applicability, and access. Effective forest watershed DSS should have the ability to forecast short and long-term consequences of forest management decisions that often involve high risk and uncertainty under environmental change. In addition, DSS should integrate both physical and social aspects of watershed sciences that value indigenous culture and values. © 2022

The use of fire simulation tools has become a regular feature of support systems for fuel management decisions at landscape level. Considering the spatial nature of fire in the evaluation of risk and the definition of fire mitigation goals is an ongoing research topic in forest management planning. By combining a fire simulation tool, a growth and yield simulator and an optimization module, it is possible to minimize the negative impact of fire over time and maximize the yield of various ecosystem services. Specific requirements for a fire simulator adapted to support tactical forest planning include a level of accuracy, the possibility of exploring diverse fire scenarios, the computational capability to simulate multiple fires and the flexibility to generate different outputs or metrics depending on the specific requirements of the planning problem under study. The present article addresses the requirements of fire simulators for their inclusion on forest tactical planning. The Cell2Fire simulator is adapted for use with fuel models more commonly employed in Europe and the United States, and to simulate the generation and spread of crown fires. Already able to solve static fire mitigation problems in its original version, this new adaptation, known as Cell2Fire_SB, has been developed with the more ambitious goal of being integrated into a decision support system that simultaneously considers fire behavior forest dynamics and allocation of management actions in order to solve temporal dynamic tactical forest problems. Copyright © 2023 Gonzalez-Olabarria, Carrasco, Pais, Garcia-Gonzalo, Palacios-Meneses, Mahaluf-Recasens, Porkhum and Weintraub.

Interest in mixed forests is increasing since they could provide higher benefits and positive externalities compared to monocultures, although their management is more complex and silvicultural prescriptions for them are still scarce. Growth simulations are a powerful tool for developing useful guidelines for mixed stands. Heureka and Motti are two decision support systems commonly used for forest management in Sweden and Finland respectively. They were developed mostly with data from pure stands, so how they would perform in mixed stands is currently uncertain. We compiled a large and updated common database of well-replicated experimental research sites and monitoring networks composed by 218 and 1,160 plot-level observations of mixed stands from Sweden and Finland, respectively. We aimed to evaluated the accuracy of Heureka and Motti basal area growth models in those mixed-species stands and to detect any bias in their short-term predictions. Basal area growth simulations (excluding mortality models) were compared to observed stand-level values in a period-wise process with update of the start values in each period. The residual plots were visually examined for different stand mixtures: Norway spruce (Picea abies Karst.)-birch (Betula spp), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.)-birch and Scots pine-Norway spruce. We observed that the basal area growth models in both decision support systems performed quite well for all mixtures regardless of the proportion of species. Motti simulations overestimated growth in Scots pine-Norway spruce mixtures by 0.063 m2·ha−1·year−1 which may be acceptable for practical use. Therefore, we corroborated that both decision support systems can be currently utilized for short-term forest growth simulation of mixed boreal forests. © 2022 The Authors

The forest-based sector plays a significant role in supporting Europe on its pathway towards a more integrated and bio-based circular economy. Beyond the supply of timber, forest ecosystems offer a wide range of products and services beneficial to human wellbeing. Non-wood forest products (NWFPs) play an integral role in provisioning forest ecosystem services and constitute a huge portfolio of species from various taxonomic kingdoms. As diverse as the resources themselves is the list of end-products that may be derived from raw non-wood materials. Multiple value-chains of NWFPs provide benefits to actors across all stages of the supply chain. Forest management has not yet directed full attention towards NWFPs, since timber production remains the main management objective, although multi-purpose management is recognised as a key principle of the sector’s sustainability paradigm. Lack of knowledge of the socio-economic relevance of NWFPs for European societies and diverse property rights frameworks increase the complexity in forest-based decision making additionally. In this study, the future potential of 38 NWFPs for diversifying the forest bioeconomy is investigated by means of multi-criteria analysis, including stakeholder interaction and expert involvement. The results for six case studies in different biogeographical zones in Europe indicate the latent opportunities NWFPs provide to forest owners who are willing to focus their management on the joint production of wood and non-wood resources as well as their value networks. This study intends to unravel perspectives for forest owners in particular, as they often represent principal decision makers in forest ecosystem management, act as main suppliers of NWFP raw materials, and thus can be understood as key stakeholders in a forest bioeconomy. Even though regional perspectives differ, due to varying socio-economic and ecological environments, there is huge potential to strengthen the economic viability of rural areas. Furthermore, sustainable co-production may foster the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems across Europe. Results show that wild mushrooms constitute the most widespread opportunity to increase additional income from forest management, but the most promising NWFPs can be found in the tree product, understorey plant and animal origin categories. © 2023 by the authors.

For several decades, computerized forest decision support systems (DSS) have helped managers and decision makers to analyze different management options and supported the search for preferred management alternatives. In Sweden, a country rich in forests and with a long tradition in intensive forest management, such systems have been developed and available since the 1970s. Changes in societal as well as in forest owners’ preferences and objectives in the 1990s led to a need for forest DSS handling broader perspectives compared to precedent single-objective timber-oriented systems. In Sweden, this led to the initiation of a research programme in the beginning of the 2000s aiming at developing a versatile and multi-objective forest DSS, resulting in the first version of the Heureka forest DSS released in 2009. The system handles several forest values, such as timber and biofuel production, carbon sequestration, dead wood dynamics, habitat for species, recreation and susceptibility to forest damages (spruce bark beetle, wind-throw and root rot). It contains a suite of software for different problem settings and geographical scales and uses simulation as well as optimization techniques. Three software handle projections of the forest using a common core of growth and yield models for simulating forest dynamics. A fourth software, built for multi-criteria decision analysis and including a web-version, enables also group decision making and participatory planning. For more than 10 years, the Heureka system has been used in teaching, environmental analysis, research and as decision support in practical forestry. For example, several research groups using the system for analyses in different problem areas have so far published more than 80 scientific papers. The system is used for nation-wide forest impact analysis for policy support and all large and many medium-sized forest owners use it for their long-term forest planning, meaning that it directly influences forest management decisions and activities on more than 50% of the Swedish forest area. Besides presenting the present system and its use, we also discuss lessons learned and potential future development. Copyright © 2023 Lämås, Sängstuvall, Öhman, Lundström, Årevall, Holmström, Nilsson, Nordström, Wikberg, Wikström and Eggers.

Sustainable management is central for the provision of forest ecosystem services. The planning situation for forest enterprises is however complex as a large number of forest services have to be considered. Furthermore, the increasing impacts of climate change pose an additional challenge. In the SessFor project, a prototype of a decision support system (DSS) for the strategic and long-term planning of forest enterprises was developed. The DSS simulates forest development under different management strategies and climate scenarios and evaluates the provision of forest ecosystem services with a multi-criteria decision analysis. The DSS was applied in three case studies in the Central Plateau and the Pre- Alps over a period of 50 years, and the effects of different management strategies on the forest ecosystem services timber production, recreation (visual attractiveness), protection against gravitational hazards, carbon storage as well as on biodiversity (structural diversity and tree species diversity) were evaluated. The highest overall utility for the considered forest services was found in almost all cases under current management practices. One exception was a case study in the Central Plateau, where the highest overall utility occurred under reduced management intensity. The climate change scenarios had a relatively small effect on the overall utility. However, individual indicators showed negative effects of climate change for the enterprises located in the Central Plateau and positive effects for a higher-elevation enterprise in the Pre-Alps. Overall, the study demonstrated how the DSS can be used to investigate the long-term development of forest ecosystem services under different management strategies and climate change scenarios. The strengths of the DSS lies particularly in the large number of considered ecosystem services and its strong empirical foundation. The multi-criteria decision analysis also supports scientifically well-founded and transparent decision-making in forest management planning. © 2023, Schweizerischer Forstverein. All rights reserved.

A decision support system for the forest planning management defines all the sequence of activities, as a combination of silviculture treatments, that each forest land area will receive through the whole planning horizon, as well as when these activities will be required to be performed. There are different possible combinations of activities, which also depend on the type of trees. Also, the yield and operational costs depend on the tree species, age, previous received treatments, etc. In this approach, a linear generalized disjunctive mathematical programming formulation for the optimal forest planning problem is proposed. This model determines the optimal forest management alternative (combination of silvicultural treatments) sequence for each stand, and their timber assortment production. The proposed model was validated using real data from a forest company located in the province of Misiones, Argentina. The test cases were solved using CPLEX solver and, as a growth simulator, the SisPinus software was employed. The computational results showthat the developed framework can be used as a decision-making tool for this complex problem, which provides alternative solutions with different trade-offs among the considered criteria. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.