Projects

Gazdasági erdők mikroklíma-kiegyenlítő hatásának vizsgálata különböző erdészeti üzemmódok mellett

Megvalósítás alatt lévő/Futó projekt

Summary:

Climate change and biodiversity decline are among the most pressing global crises we have to face. An important tool for mitigating their negative impacts worldwide, along with the support of other ecosystem services, is the maintenance and protection of compositionally and structurally heterogeneous forests. One important, but usually overrated ecosystem service of forests is timber; however, timber production by conventional rotation forestry is the main cause of biodiversity loss and suppressed climate-buffering capacity of woodlands. Due to the pressure from the public, multipurpose and more close-to-nature silvicultural techniques – called continuous cover forestry – have been spreading in the last decades. In Central Europe, small canopy openings (i.e., artificial gaps) are the main tools of this paradigm, but the technical details of these interventions and their effects on forest site conditions or entire landscapes are still not well-documented. Therefore, it is important to study how the most commonly adjusted attributes (size, shape) alter microclimate variables, how the microclimate recovers after gap-cuttings, and how different thermal regimes can be of landscapes under the two opposing management schemes to support more sustainable forestry. The proposed research also addresses methodological questions regarding state-of-the-art temperature measurement techniques. Another important aspect is that the project will collect and analyse already available, yet sporadic information about the effects of forest management practices around the globe on below-canopy microclimate to formulate general and comparable relationships and recommendations.