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Adaptive risk management in oak and pine forests vulnerable to drought via integrative evaluation and flexible damage thresholds

Project


Project code: 22018017
Contract period: 01.07.2019 - 30.06.2022
Budget: 430,493 Euro
Purpose of research: Inventory & Assessment
Keywords: plant health, forest protection, risk assessment

The project is carried out in close cooperation between the state forest research agencies that are responsible for the reference region. To fulfill this central position these agencies benefit from their characteristic role as transmitters between applied research and forest enterprises. Stakeholders from differing backgrounds will be involved to a large extent, primarily to identify the expectations and needs placed upon the forests which in turn define the intensity of forest protection measures to be implemented. In this process new and adaptive decision support tools shall be developed that reflect the regionally-specific set of conditions. They relate to the wide area of forest lands composed of oak and Scots pine in the Southeast and Northeast of Germany which are facing increased risk levels in terms of prolonged drought periods and heat waves. For insect species with mass outbreak potential, monitoring and damage assessment procedures shall be updated to form a reliable basis for the possible application of insecticides. A central aim is to establish flexible thresholds for "acceptable" damages that reflect the immense variety of forest ecosystem functions and services. Their definition will be supported by wide-ranging consequence analyses that are capable of incorporating variable societal and political context conditions. At the Eberswalde state forest research center the project will combine the use of long-term data banks on forest protection and pest monitoring with state-of-the-art population models involving a wide range of climatic factors. These models were developed by preceding projects to reflect the increasing need for incorporating climate change effects into determining the reasons for mass outbreaks. Damage assessments based on the regionally-specific set of forest functions will be translated into quantifiable predictions of social, economic, and ecological consequences. This potential damage level will comp

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