Climate-Smart Forestry and forest restoration: an overview of experimental trials across Europe

Abstract

Climate change and other environmental stressors, such as air pollution and natural disturbances, are putting growing pressure on forest ecosystems and their biodiversity. To date, we still have limited knowledge on the effectiveness of various mitigation and adaptation measures to guide forest management decision making. Climate-Smart Forestry and restoration-oriented management are viewed as promising management approaches in order to preserve and restore biodiversity, ensure the provision of ecosystem services, and to support forest adaptation to climate change.

Across Europe, many forest management and restoration experiments and field trials already exist, but a systematic overview of all experiments and trials is still missing. Based on an extensive, systematic review of existing experiments and trials, we developed a public and spatial database of Climate-Smart Forestry and restoration pilots from international and national networks, projects and other initiatives. For each experiment, the geographical location, the experimental design or treatments, the initial state of the forest stands, the year of establishment, and the obtained findings were explored. Trials and experiments were clustered according to the management measures, objectives, geographical regions, and European forest types to highlight the knowledge gaps on Climate-Smart Forestry and restoration. Outcomes can facilitate the implementation of Climate-Smart Forestry and restoration practices across European forest ecosystems. The overview can guide the allocation of public funds to support the establishment of new trials in those European forest types, geographical regions, and management systems that are currently missing.