• Energy Research

Abstract Key message Natural regeneration of beech, maple and fir was investigated in relation to irradiance, ground vegetation and soil features. Seedling establishment may be favoured by creating small and irregular gaps and by successive extension of gaps along the sun-exposed gap edge. Context To successfully manage natural regeneration, it is important to understand the interactions of forest gap micro-climates and soil features. Aim The aim of this study was to identify conditions for successful natural regeneration of European beech, sycamore maple and silver fir in mixed forests. Methods Seedling growth and survival were recorded within and around two artificial gaps, and the relationships to irradiance, ground vegetation and soil features were examined. A simple conceptual model was applied to identify optimal micro-sites for regeneration. Results Ground vegetation hindered the establishment of natural regeneration in the centre of the gaps. Small seedlings of maple and beech were more abundant within the small gap and along gap edges; beech had the highest density on sun-exposed edges and maple on shaded gap edges. Tall beech and maple seedlings were more abundant along sun-exposed gap edges. Greater variability of irradiance in the larger gap contributed to greater micro-site heterogeneity relative to the small gap. Conclusions Seedling establishment may be favoured by creating small and irregular gaps and by successive extension of gaps along the sun-exposed gap edge. Circular gaps with diameters greater than stand height contribute to increased ground vegetation coverage and hinder tree regeneration, including semi-shade tolerant maple and spruce.

AbstractNowadays, there is contrasting evidence between the ongoing continuing and widespread environmental degradation and the many means to implement environmental sustainability actions starting from good policies (e.g. EU New Green Deal, CAP), powerful technologies (e.g. new satellites, drones, IoT sensors), large databases and large stakeholder engagement (e.g. EIP‐AGRI, living labs). Here, we argue that to tackle the above contrasting issues dealing with land degradation, it is very much required to develop and use friendly and freely available web‐based operational tools to support both the implementation of environmental and agriculture policies and enable to take positive environmental sustainability actions by all stakeholders. Our solution is the S‐DSS LANDSUPPORT platform, consisting of a free web‐based smart Geospatial CyberInfrastructure containing 15 macro‐tools (and more than 100 elementary tools), co‐designed with different types of stakeholders and their different needs, dealing with sustainability in agriculture, forestry and spatial planning. LANDSUPPORT condenses many features into one system, the main ones of which were (i) Web‐GIS facilities, connection with (ii) satellite data, (iii) Earth Critical Zone data and (iv) climate datasets including climate change and weather forecast data, (v) data cube technology enabling us to read/write when dealing with very large datasets (e.g. daily climatic data obtained in real time for any region in Europe), (vi) a large set of static and dynamic modelling engines (e.g. crop growth, water balance, rural integrity, etc.) allowing uncertainty analysis and what if modelling and (vii) HPC (both CPU and GPU) to run simulation modelling ‘on‐the‐fly’ in real time. Two case studies (a third case is reported in the Supplementary materials), with their results and stats, covering different regions and spatial extents and using three distinct operational tools all connected to lower land degradation processes (Crop growth, Machine Learning Forest Simulator and GeOC), are featured in this paper to highlight the platform's functioning. Landsupport is used by a large community of stakeholders and will remain operational, open and free long after the project ends. This position is rooted in the evidence showing that we need to leave these tools as open as possible and engage as much as possible with a large community of users to protect soils and land.

We assessed the probability of three major natural hazards--windthrow, drought, and forest fire--for Central and South-Eastern European forests which are major threats for the provision of forest goods and ecosystem services. In addition, we analyzed spatial distribution and implications for a future oriented management of forested landscapes. For estimating the probability of windthrow, we used rooting depth and average wind speed. Probabilities of drought and fire were calculated from climatic and total water balance during growing season. As an approximation to climate change scenarios, we used a simplified approach with a general increase of pET by 20%. Monitoring data from the pan-European forests crown condition program and observed burnt areas and hot spots from the European Forest Fire Information System were used to test the plausibility of probability maps. Regions with high probabilities of natural hazard are identified and management strategies to minimize probability of natural hazards are discussed. We suggest future research should focus on (i) estimating probabilities using process based models (including sensitivity analysis), (ii) defining probability in terms of economic loss, (iii) including biotic hazards, (iv) using more detailed data sets on natural hazards, forest inventories and climate change scenarios, and (v) developing a framework of adaptive risk management.