ALPFOR-CSF

Project duration

2025 - 2026 (ongoing)

Project overview

ALPFOR-CSF: Climate Smart Forestry and management adaptations of Alpine mountain forests

ALPFOR-CSF is a research project funded with a third-party grant in the framework of FORWARDS, a large collaborative project funded by the European Union that will prototype the ForestWard Observatory, a pan-European monitoring and evaluation tool that will help in demonstrating the impact of climate change on forests, guiding decision-making for practical forest management. As part of its activities, FORWARDS has been establishing a network of climate smart forestry (CSF) and restoration pilots to provide science-based reference knowledge to guide forest management.

The objective of ALPFOR-CSF is to establish new field trials for long-term forest monitoring to assess the impact of climate smart forestry and adaptive management practices in forests of the Italian Alps. Our trials within three study areas cover several aspects of CSF in the Alps, such as the implementation of adaptations to management interventions in Norway spruce stands for composition enrichment and structure diversification to promote ecosystem functioning and improving the trade-off among timber production, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation. In both control and CSF treatments, important variables will be collected pre- and post-treatment execution at both stand- and tree-level, such as diameter, tree locations, canopy structure, soil carbon, microclimate, deadwood amount, tree microhabitats, and regeneration. Ground- and UAV-based photogrammetry will be used to collect forest structure at stand-level data, while dendrometers and inventory-based methods will be used to monitor forest growth at the tree-level. These variables will be used to derive indicators of climate smart forestry and to quantify the potential for carbon mitigation of such practices. Simulation modelling will also be applied to predict future stand development under climate change. Finally, we will conduct a survey among the forest services regarding their perception on adaptive forest management and maintain an open data repository that will feed into the FORWARDS database.

Methodology

Field trials are set in three representative sites in South Tyrol (Italy) involving control (unharvested + business-as-usual) and CSF-adapted silvicultural treatments on Norway spruce-dominated stands mixed with silver fir, European larch, and Swiss stone pine. CSF interventions focus on diversifying species composition, increasing structural heterogeneity, and enhancing deadwood to support ecosystem services and forest adaptation to climate stressors like drought.

Data collection occurs at two levels: stand-level (approx. 1 ha) and tree-level (five smaller sampling plots). Measurements include forest structure, species composition, site conditions, canopy properties via ground-based and UAV imagery, tree growth via dendrometers, soil carbon content, microclimate monitoring, deadwood biomass, and regeneration. These comprehensive datasets enable calculation of CSF indicators and evaluation of ecosystem service provisioning. Additionally, the a forest simulation model will predict future forest dynamics under climate change and management scenarios

The project is implementated in four work packages (WP).

• WP1. Project management and Dissemination Coordinates activities, prepares reports, and organizes scientific dissemination and a workshop with forest managers.
• WP2. CSF Protocol Development and Treatment Execution Develops operational CSF protocols for silvicultural treatments and oversees their implementation by the Provincial Forest Services on state-owned forests.
• WP3. Field Data Collection Conducts two consecutive seasons of detailed field measurements using in situ sensors and close range remote sensing, including installation of dendrometers and microclimate loggers.
• WP4.Data Analysis, Modeling, and Management Survey Processes and organizes data into an open-access database, derives CSF indicators, runs forest dynamic simulations, and conducts a survey among forest managers to assess perceptions and feasibility of CSF approaches.

Funding

The project is funded under the call Call: G-03-2024-2 Establishing Climate-Smart Forestry and forest restoration pilots in Europe managed by the European Forest Institute under the framework of the FORWARDS PROJECT, funded by the European Union (Horizon Europe)

Project team

• Marco Mina Eurac Research - Project manager
• Sebastian Marzini Eurac Research
• Nikolaus Obojes Eurac Research
• Tamara Bibbó Eurac Research