The first objective of this FAIR project (CT98-4124) is to identify the potential causes of recent growth trends in European forests and to investigate their interactions with focus on the relative importance of nutrients (primarily nitrogen and CO2), climate (primarily temperature and precipitation) and land-use changes. The second objective is to focus on growth analyses on selected sites where conditions and availability of historical data allow testing of specific hypotheses about the causes of changes in site productivity. The third objective is to analyse the long-term consequences and risks of observed changes for sustainability and to assess the implications for future management strategies.
The project consists of three main components; the Present State Analysis (PSA), the Historical Data Investigation (HDI) conducted by the Chair of Soil Science of the University of Munich and the Institute for Forest Growth of the University of Freiburg, and the Modelling approach, which will use 4 different models and is co-ordinated by the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
This project was carried out with the financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, Agriculture and Fisheries DG Research - Quality of Life Programme and RTD Cooperation with third countries and international organizations.
The results of the project are published in EFI Research Report 25.