INFORMAEuropean Union ProjectsProject duration: Jul 2022 to Jun 2026Climate change poses a global challenge to both the health of forests and the ecosystem goods and services they provide to society. Adaptive forest management to climate change can make forest structure more resilient to the more arid conditions of the coming years, increasing forest health. This project will study, in close collaboration with forest managers, different forest management pathways across Europe, mostly using process-based simulation models.IntroductionThe main objective of this project is to develop and test adaptive forest management strategies to climate change for the whole of Europe, based on different management goals.Climate change poses a global threat both to the health of forests and to their ecosystem goods and services provision to society. Adaptive forest management practices to climate change can potentially result in a forest structure more resistant to the more arid conditions of the coming years. This will increase forest health and preserve the goods and services fprests offer to society. In this project different forest management strategies will be studied across Europe to adapt the structure of European forests to climate change. This will be done in close collaboration with local stakeholders.To this end, different process-based forest simulation models (among them the GOTILWA+ model, developed at CREAF) will be used to simulate forest development under different climate and pre-designed management scenario combinations. This simulation will be carried out on a set of well-characterized forest plots at different European countries, in order to use them as case studies to transfer the knowledge gained to local stakeholders. The different management itineraries will be evaluated based on different indices, calculated from the resulting forest structure, vitality, and the resulting C and water fluxes.