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The increasing demand for innovative forest management strategies to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and benefit forest production, so called Climate-Smart Forestry, calls for a tool to monitor and evaluate their implementation and their effect on forest development over time. The Pan-European set of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management is considered one of the most important tools for assessing many aspects of forest management and its sustainability. This study offers an analytic approach to select a subset of indicators to support the implementation of Climate-Smart Forestry. Based on a literature review and the analytic hierarchical approach, 10 indicators were selected to assess, in particular, mitigation and adaptation. These indicators were used to assess the state of Climate-Smart Forestry trend in Europe from 1990 to 2015, using data from the reports on the State of Europe’s Forests. Forest damage, tree species composition and carbon stock were the most important indicators. Though the trend was overall positive with regard to adaptation and mitigation, its evaluation was partly hindered by the lack of data. We advocate for increased efforts to harmonize international reporting and for further integrating the goals of Climate-Smart Forestry in national and European-level forest policy making.

Biogeosciences and Forestry Biogeosciences and Forestry Biodiversity conservation and wood production in a Natura 2000 Mediterranean forest. A trade-off evaluation focused on the occurrence of microhabitats Giovanni Santopuoli (1-2-3) , Marco di Cristofaro (2) , Daniel Kraus (4) , Andreas Schuck (5) , Bruno Lasserre (2) , Marco Marchetti (1-2) The most significant European forest-related strategies highlight the importance of multifunctional forests for human wellbeing, due to the provision of a wide range of goods and services. However, managing competing aims, such as timber production, economic drivers and biodiversity conservation is often difficult for practitioners. In order to assess the loss and gain of ecosystem services caused by forestry, trade-off evaluation has been increasingly used to aid decision-making. In this study, four silvicultural scenarios are simulated using the Marteloscope approach to evaluate the trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and timber production. Tree-related Microhabitats (TreMs) are used as a proxy to evaluate forest habitat value, while timber production is assessed by the number of harvested trees, biomass removal and economic income. This study takes an innovative approach by investigating TreMs using the Marteloscope in mixed Mediterranean forest. The main findings from this paper confirm that tree-related microhabitats can be considered ecological indicators effective in identifying important habitat trees, to assess forest habitat value and support tree marking for thinning operations and management.

Abstract:Airborne laser scanning is a promising technique for efficient and accurate, remote-based forest inventory, due to its capacity for direct measurement of the three-dimensional structure of vegetation. The main objective of this study was to test the usability and accuracy of an individual tree detection approach, using reFLex software, in the evaluation of forest variables. The accuracy assessment was conducted in a selected type of multilayered deciduous forest in southern Italy. Airborne laser scanning data were taken with a YellowScan Mapper scanner at an average height of 150 m. Point density reached 30 echoes per m 2 , but most points belonged to the first echo. The ground reference data contained the measured positions and dimensions of 445 trees. Individual tree-detection rates were 66% for dominant, 48% for codominant, 18% for intermediate, and 5% for suppressed trees. Relative root mean square error for tree height, diameter, and volume reached 8.2%, 21.8%, and 45.7%, respectively. All remote-based tree variables were strongly correlated with the ground data (R 2 = 0.71-0.79). At the stand-level, the results show that differences ranged between 4% and 17% for stand height and 22% and 40% for stand diameter. The total growing stock differed by −43% from the ground reference data, and the ratios were 64% for dominant, 58% for codominant, 36% for intermediate, and 16% for suppressed trees.

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