How does restoration ecology consider climate change uncertainties in forested ecosystems?

Abstract

Forest restoration is a powerful tool that combats forest loss and mitigates climate change. Our review asks how climate change considerations are integrated into forest restoration. We asked: (1) How many articles about forest restoration practices discuss climate change; (2) has this changed over time; and (3) when climate change is mentioned, how is it considered? We used the framework created by Simonson et al. in 2021, which describes seven unique areas where practitioners can consider climate change impacts in their projects. These areas include adjusting species and location for projected changes to fitness, mitigating risks, and aligning practice with policy. We reviewed the literature through Web of Science and evaluated publications for inclusion of these considerations. We found that the number of publications about forest restoration projects has increased significantly since the early 2000s, exceeding 200 in 2021. The proportion of these including the terms “climate change” or “global warming,” has also increased (35% in 2021). Climate change concepts were only considered in what we defined as an “in‐depth” context in 83 of the 186 publications we reviewed (45%). However, the majority of publications (115 of 186, 61%) did incorporate at least one of the seven considerations, even if they did not satisfy our definition for in‐depth climate change consideration. Several articles discussed other considerations not described by Simonson et al. (2021), leading us to recommend adding an eighth criterion to their framework: consider place‐based communities and Indigenous Knowledge Holders' responses to climate change in forest restoration.