Developing adaptive forest management strategies to cope with climate change

Numerous investigations have indicated that projected climate change will impact strongly on forest growth and composition. To adapt managed forests to changing environmental conditions it may be necessary to modify traditional forest management strategies. An extended version of a forest gap model was applied to a managed forest district in northeastern Germany. The model was initialized with forest inventory data and run using routines devised to simulate three management scenarios: (1) maximized timber production, (2) climatically well-adapted forest composition, and (3) maximized tree species diversity. The strategies were compared with a baseline scenario of traditional management without any response to climate change. The comparisons were based on simulated wood production and species composition after 110 years of development. The results underline the important influence that management strategies have on forest growth. Forest management may adopt a variety of strategies to respond to the expected changes in climate. Process-oriented forest gap models can aid in the assessment of these strategies.