Climate change and forest adaptation

Ongoing climate change is on a of the big challenges for the maintainance of productive forests. Climatic exterme events like drought, heat waves, storms and the acompanying occurrence of pathogens require a monitoring of forest development and an adaptation of forest and forest management.

Soil Carbon in Forest Soils

Organic carbon stocks and their changes in forest soils

Greenhousegas Monitoring

Forests can mitigate climate change by the long-term carbon sequestration in forest stands and soils. However, a loss of carbon in forest biomass and soils have adverse effects.

Level II

The Intensive Forest Monitoring (Level II) is performed within selected forest sites (case studies). Data on relevant parameters are collected periodically or even continuously in order to describe status and development of forest ecosystems.

German Wildlife Information System

The German Wildlife Information System (WILD) is a monitoring program assessing populations of game species troughout Germany.

Studies on the life of various wild species using satellite telemetry

In the last decades in many regions of Germany the hunting pressure on the deer continuously was increased for the forest conversion.

Programme Co-ordinating Centre (PCC) of ICP Forests

In the 1980s, an increasing deterioration of tree crown condition in European forests was observed. The suspected connection with the then high levels of air pollution (especially by sulfur dioxide) led to the adoption of the International Co-operative Programme ICP Forests under the UNECE Air Convention in 1985.

Forest Monitoring

Forest are exposed to multiple environmental effects. Air pollutants, climate change and pathogens may impact vitality and productivity of our forests.

National Forest Condition Survey

How is the forest doing in Germany? The Forest Condition Survey (WZE; Level I monitoring) investigates this question. The nationwide survey takes annually place on an area-representative sample grid.

Methotd of Wild Boar catching

Copernicus Forest Network Office

As an interface between remote sensing experts and forest stakeholders, forest owners, forest authorities and enterprises, research institutions and companies, the Copernicus Network Office Forest supports, advises and networks all stakeholders who use or would like to use remote sensing data and services.

Reporting on the NEC Directive

To improve air quality, emissions of pollutants must be reduced. National measures are often not enough here, as air pollutants can be transported over long distances. For this reason, the EU and the parties to the Geneva Convention on Air Pollution have defined national emission reduction commitments for various substances.

Regionalization Forest Condition Survey

Forest trees at very different sites in Germany are increasingly suffering from climate change. In this project, the cause-effect relationships between environmental influences and tree vitality are to be investigated in order to generate country-wide maps based on the sample points of the Crown Condition Survey (Waldzustandserhebung WZE).

Monitoring of peatland soils

How much carbon do organic soils store? How much does the forest stand store compared to that? What thickness do the peat layers of drained peatlands still have? How do the emissions of organic soils develop? Peatland soil monitoring clarifies these questions and derives measures for climate protection.

Holistic management practices, modelling and monitoring for European forest soils

Improve and harmonize methods for estimating soil carbon and nitrogen stocks and fluxes in relation to forest management practices, land use history, and their influence on greenhouse gas balance in Europe.

Analysis of ghg emissions from forested peatlands

Together with the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) ghg emissions are measured on two rewetted forested peatlands using automatic chamber systems.

BBZE- Forest

Development of a method to estimate the condition of forest soil properties by a sampling based survey and by regionalisation.

TroWaK

A high-resolution water balance model is to be developed as part of the TroWaK project for Germany-wide real-time assessment of water availability and drought risks in forest areas. The results of the water balance model form the basis for new methods to estimate the risk of abiotic and biotic consequential damage in drought-affected forests.

Forested peatlands: contribution to biodiversity and climate protection

About 15 percent of Germany's peatlands are forested. What specific contribution do these ecosystems make in terms of biodiversity and climate protection? How can they be used and preserved sustainably?

ESP Secretariat

Since 2021, the ESP Secretariat is hosted at the Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries (Thuenen Institute, Germany). The European Soil Partnership is part of a global network of eight regional soil partnerships.

Forest condition: remote sensing and ground truthing

In order to be able to make statements about forest condition using remote sensing (RS), reference data collected on the ground, so-called ground truth data, is required. This project is investigating how the individual tree information from the forest condition survey (WZE) can best be linked with remote sensing data.

Continuation of the Integrated Monitoring Program at the Neuglobsow Station (Brandenburg)

The "Integrated Monitoring" (ICP-IM) is an international cooperative program under the Geneva Air Quality Convention that examines the effects of long-range transported air pollutants on ecosystems across multiple locations in Europe. Since June 2023, the Thünen Institute has been coordinating measurements at the Neuglobsow site in Brandenburg.

Integration of (bio-)acoustic methods for the quantification of biodiversity in forest monitoring (AkWamo)

Feasibility study: Integration of (bio-)acoustic methods for the quantification of biological diversity in forest monitoring. Based on acoustic surveys, the potential of (bio-)acoustic quantification of biodiversity for nationwide forest monitoring is to be tested.

ADAPT Forest-Wood

In the ADAPT-Wald-Holz project, a junior research group is developing an adaptive regional forest-wood management system. The focus is on an ecosystem and resource-conserving regional value chain - from forest management to wood supply and wood processing.

Investigation of belowground biomass

Investigation of belowground biomass of forest trees to improve the greenhouse gas reporting in Germany.

Further development of emission factors

Further development of emission factors for living biomass in forests to improve greenhouse gas reporting

WEHAM (business as usual scenario)

Informations on the future development of forests and the potential outcome of different management activities are a valuable asset in the valuation of alternative management and policy options.

CD REDD II

The preservation of rainforest is an important contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases. The establishment and implementation of a greenhous gas inventory is challenging for developing countries. The Thünen-Institute of Forest Ecosystems conducted courses and training activities in selected African countries.

Inventory Study 2008

Forests may serve as important sinks for carbon. Germany obliged itself in international conventions to report annually about changes in the carbon storage of forests, caused by, for example natural processes like tree growth or forest management. The purpose of the Inventory Study 2008 was to determine the current carbon stock of the forests in germany.

Root biomass of Scots pine

The forests in Germany store huge amounts of carbon. Thus they are influencing climate change, but they are also affected by it. Up to one third of the carbon can be found in the roots systems of trees. However, quantitative studies on below-ground biomass of larger Scots pines are yet not done in Germany.

GHG Inventories for forests under the Kyoto Protocol 2008-2012

In the period 2008-2012, the first commitment period under the Kyoto-Protocol, Germany accounts for Afforrestation, Deforestation and Forest Management. The Greenhouse Gas Inventory delivers the statistical basis for this accounting.

WEHAM-Subproject 2: Development of WEHAM scenarios

Assessment of the sustainability of different forest management and timber use scenarios, with emphasis on climate protection and biodiversity conservation.

eForest

eForest is a platform for projects between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the „European National Forest Inventory Network“ Consortium (ENFIN). eForest aims in supporting and enhancing the basic knowledge of the European Forest Data Centre (EFDAC)

LULUCF - Forestry under a global climate convention

Environmental implications of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) under a future climate convention

Carbon Inventory 2017

Survival-Forest-Climate Change

Alterations in the lifetime of forest stands: Economic consequences of climate change for forestry enterprises

DIABOLO

The increasing competition for forest resources will necessitate new forest-related policies across different sectors. These policies demand relevant, harmonised, comprehensive, reliable and up-to-date information. As a response to this challenge, the DIABOLO project brings together 33 partners from scientific institutions in 25 European countries, including experts in the fields of policy analysis, forest inventory and forest modelling, who have live linkages to European and national policy institutions and stakeholder networks.

Forest Inventory Brandenburg

DENDROKLIMA

The aim of the project DENDROKLIMA is to analyze the adaptability of the tree species scots pine and sessile oak to changing environmental conditions, and thus to analyze the effects of climate change on tree growth.

Advanced estimation of carbon storage in deadwood

Carbon is stored in deadwood - but how much? How long? And where exactly - above ground or below ground? Answers and specific data on the above ground and below ground carbon storage in deadwood will be provided by the running research project.

UAVs Forest Monitoring

Study on the use of UAVs in forest monitoring

STEM

Crossing scales and disciplines to identify global trends in tree mortality as indicator of forest health

ValoFor/ForestValue

Small Forests - Big Players: Valorising small scale forestry for a bio-based economy

Mercury inputs in forest

Development and testing of methods to measure wet mercury deposition under the canopy of forests on the Intensive Forest Environmental Monitoring (Level II) plots.

Remote sensing based National Forest Damage Monitoring System

Drought, storms, forest fires and insect pests have caused increasing damage to forests in Germany in recent years. For crisis management, reliable information on the extent, distribution and development of damage is required.

National Scale Tree Species Mapping for Germany

The project aims at generating wall-to-wall tree species distribution maps for the area of Germany by using National Forest Inventory data within remote sensing analysis.