Changes in forest disturbances can have strong impacts on forests, yet we lack consistent data on Europe’s forest disturbance regimes and their changes over time. Here we used satellite data to map three decades of forest disturbances across continental Europe, and analysed the patterns and trends in disturbance size, frequency and severity. Between 1986 and 2016, 17% of Europe’s forest area was disturbed by anthropogenic and/or natural causes. We identified 36 million individual disturbance patches with a mean patch size of 1.09 ha, which equals an annual average of 0.52 disturbance patches per km2 of forest area. The majority of disturbances were stand replacing. While trends in disturbance size were highly variable, disturbance frequency consistently increased and disturbance severity decreased. Here we present a continental-scale characterization of Europe’s forest disturbance regimes and their changes over time, providing spatial information that is critical for understanding the ongoing changes in Europe’s forests. Changes in forest disturbance affect their sustainability. This study finds that between 1986 and 2016, 36 million disturbances by humans or other causes affected 17% of Europe’s forest area.

/pdf/mapping-the-forest-disturbance-regimes-of-europe-1pvipi8q65.pdf

Mapping the forest disturbance regimes of Europe

Mortality is a key indicator of forest health, and increasing mortality can serve as bellwether for the impacts of global change on forest ecosystems. Here we analyze trends in forest canopy mortality between 1984 and 2016 over more than 30 Mill. ha of temperate forests in Europe, based on a unique dataset of 24,000 visually interpreted spectral trajectories from the Landsat archive. On average, 0.79% of the forest area was affected by natural or human-induced mortality annually. Canopy mortality increased by +2.40% year–1, doubling the forest area affected by mortality since 1984. Areas experiencing low-severity mortality increased more strongly than areas affected by stand-replacing mortality events. Changes in climate and land-use are likely causes of large-scale forest mortality increase. Our findings reveal profound changes in recent forest dynamics with important implications for carbon storage and biodiversity conservation, highlighting the importance of improved monitoring of forest mortality. Increases in tree mortality can signal changes in forest health, but large-scale tree mortality is difficult to quantify. Here Senf et al. show large-scale increases in forest mortality in Central Europe over the past 30 years, which were related to increasing growing stocks and temperature.

/pdf/canopy-mortality-has-doubled-in-europe-s-temperate-forests-852y69iez7.pdf

Canopy mortality has doubled in Europe's temperate forests over the last three decades.

The ‘novel ecosystem' concept has captured the attention of scientists, managers, and science journalists, and more recently of policymakers, before it has been subjected to the scrutiny and empirical validation inherent to science. Lack of rigorous scrutiny can lead to undesirable outcomes in ecosystem management, environmental law, and policy. Contrary to the contentions of its proponents, no explicit, irreversible ecological thresholds allow distinctions between ‘novel ecosystems' and ‘hybrid' or ‘historic' ones. Further, there is no clear message as to what practitioners should do with a ‘novel ecosystem'. In addition, ecosystems of many types are being conserved, or restored to trajectories within historical ranges of variation, despite severe degradation that could have led to their being pronounced ‘novel'.

/pdf/a-critique-of-the-novel-ecosystem-concept-2dwb6tb0zc.pdf

A critique of the ‘novel ecosystem’ concept

Tree species is the major factor explaining C:N ratios in European forest soils

National Forest Inventories (NFIs) are becoming increasingly important worldwide in order to provide information about the multiple functions of forests, e.g. their provision of raw materials to industry, biodiversity and their capacity to store carbon for mitigating climate change. In several countriesthehistoryofNFIsisverylong. �Forthesecountriesaspecificchallengeistokeepthe � inventoriesup-to-datewithoutsacrificingtheadvantagesassociatedwithlongtimeseries. �Atthe � turn of the 20th century European NFIs faced some major challenges. In this article we describe the history and the recent developments of the Swedish NFI as an example from which general observations are made and discussed. The Swedish NFI started in 1923 and has evolved from an inventory with a narrow focus on wood resources to an inventory today which aims to provide information about all major forest ecosystem services. It can be concluded that the traditional approachesofmostEuropeanNFIs, �e.g. �tocollectdatathroughsampleplotfieldinventories, �has � provedtobeapplicableevenforawiderangeofnewinforma tionrequirements. �Specifically , � detailed data about land use, trees, vegetation, and soils has found new important uses in con- nection with biodiversity assessments and the estimation of greenhouse gas emissions. Though time-consuminganddifficult, �makingNFIinformationcompa rableacrosscountriesthrough � harmonizationappearstobeausefulapproach. �TheEuropeanNationalForestInventoryNetwork� (ENFIN) was formed in 2003 and has been successful in pan-European NFI harmonization.

Adapting National Forest Inventories to changing requirements - the case of the Swedish National Forest Inventory at the turn of the 20th century

State of Europe\'s forests 2015

State of Europe's Forests 2015 - summary for policy makers

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State of Europe\'s forests 2015

State of Europe's Forests 2015 - summary for policy makers