Making forests resilient to climate change under current and future conditions - that is the goal of the Climate Future Lab FoResLab.
Climate change has a direct impact on forests in Central Europe and poses a challenge for the way forests are managed under current and future conditions. Solutions that make forests resilient to climate change are urgently needed to preserve and protect the key ecosystem functions and services that forests provide.
For this reason, the Climate Future Lab FoResLab - Future Lab towards Forests Resilient to ClimateChange will investigate the central question of how forests can be made resilient to climate change under current and future conditions. FoResLab will bring together experts from three universities, a university of applied sciences and arts, two state research institutions with a network of international partners and five practice partners, thus ensuring a close link between science, business and civil society. Organised in three platforms and 13 sub-projects, FoResLab will break new ground in inter- and transdisciplinary research, science communication and knowledge transfer.
In an Experimental Platform - in a harmonised experimental design - relevant ecosystem functions and services, such as CO² uptake and water storage, will be investigated in six highly instrumented forests using the latest near-real-time sensor technology in order to derive indicators for the resilience of forests to climate change.
The experimental platform will develop and support a Digital Platform where airborne and spaceborne remote sensing and modelling approaches will deliver two online products that will be accessible to the public. Here, digital twins will make it possible to explore management options for real forests in a digital environment. In addition, an online forest water stress monitor will provide high spatial and temporal resolution of near real-time forest monitoring.
A Societal Platform will promote transdisciplinary research, stimulate scientific publications and enable a comprehensive involvement of all forest stakeholders. Cooperation with museums of knowledge will break new ground in digital education, public events and science communication. In this way, FoResLab connects science, politics and society. FoResLab will contribute to climate change resilient forests with its research, the involvement of interest groups and society as well as the academic and non-academic transfer of knowledge.
Spokesperson
News from the Climate Future Lab
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What makes forests resilient?
Interview with FoResLab spokesperson Prof. Alexander Knohl
Project partners
- Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
- Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen
- Julius Kühn-Institut
- Leibniz Universität Hannover
- Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
- Nordwestdeutsche Forstliche Versuchsanstalt
- Technische Universität Braunschweig