Successful technical session "Decision support approaches for Forestry of the 21st Century" at IUFRO world congress 2019 in Curitiba

The ForestDSS Community of Practice has been actively involved in the scientific program of the IUFRO world congress 2019 in Curitiba, Brazil. The technical session named “Decision support approaches for Forestry of the 21st Century” has been organized by members of the ForestDSS CoP. 13 oral presentations have been presented in two slots, and every presenter had time to present and discuss the results. The aim of the session was to show which solutions are proposed to deal with the complex decision environment in forest management under the ongoing climate and social changes. In this context the forest multi-functionality and the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services were discussed. The following conclusions were drawn in the discussion: • There is a strong need to consider different ecosystem services in the design of DSS and provide tools that support multi-functional forest management. • The big challenge is how to design approaches, models and methods in the frame of disturbed and degraded forests. • another big challenge for decision support systems is the need to integrate the risks and uncertainties involved in climate change and its consequences in the long term planning . • The members of the Community of Practice on Forest Decision Support Systems (www.forestdss.org) should continue to share their expertise in applying models, methods, techniques and frameworks for developing and applying DSSs to provide lessons learned. All presentations from the IUFRO world congress technical session “Decision support approaches for Forestry of the 21st Century” have been provided by authors for broad sharing. Please see below: