Project at the Chair of Silviculture on the development of forests resilient to climate change gets approval

How do saplings manage to grow into healthy trees despite climate-induced stress caused by heat and drought?

The beginning of November 2022 marks the start of a new joint project on forest development at TU Dresden, funded by the Waldklimafonds (Forest Climate Fund). Jointly managed by the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) and the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the Waldklimafonds (WKF) was set up following a resolution in the German Bundestag. The WAIKLIM joint project on silviculture in the midst of climate change aims to provide insights into how, with the help of forest management, young plants can be given the best possible chance of survival and growth despite changing climatic conditions. Prof. Sven Wagner, Chair of Silviculture at TU Dresden, will lead the WAIKLIM project. The project has been awarded more than two million euros for a funding period of five years.

Foresters around the world are faced with the challenge of how to secure the future of the forest spaces they manage in a rapidly changing environment. Single-species forest stands (or a single-species contiguous community of trees) as well as more frequent periods of drought and severe weather necessitate an adjustment in forest management strategies in many places. WAIKLIM is investigating how varying degrees of canopy clearing in mature tree stands affect local water supply and the growth of young trees. In doing so, the researchers are also observing the extent to which storms pose a threat to mature tree stands.

Forest stands belonging to the Sachsenforst public enterprise (SBS) in particular have been selected for analysis, with the soil being loosened and planted with trees important to forestry, such as the English oak, beech, Douglas fir and silver fir. The correlation between mature trees and rejuvenation in relation to an area’s water supply will provide practical information useful to silviculture, enabling the establishment of sustainable tree species in Saxon forests.

The project team is comprised of four TU Dresden Chairs which are pooling their expertise in an effort to find solutions for a sustainable silviculture: the Chairs of Silviculture (Prof. Sven Wagner, Project Head), Soil Resources and Land Use (Prof. Karsten Kalbitz), Site Ecology and Plant Nutrition (Prof. Karl-Heinz Feger) and Biodiversity and Nature Conservation (Prof. Goddert von Oheimb) make up the project team. The wide range of expertise and seasoned interdisciplinary collaboration between the Faculty of Forest Sciences in Tharandt and the Faculty of Environmental Sciences provide optimal conditions for this project.

As a key regional partner, SBS is responsible for selecting the study sites and the planting. TU Dresden and Sachsenforst have built a close network and strong partnership with each other thanks to their collaboration in previous projects.

Two other external partners are working with TU Dresden and Sachsenforst on the project. Prof. Oleg Panferov, Chair of Climate Change and Climate Protection at Bingen Technical University of Applied Sciences, who TU Dresden has worked with on other projects, employs software to simulate storm damage and the probability of storm damage in forests. A large amount of data will be collected during the project for the simulation and will be fed into the software.

Dr. Isabelle Herrmann (independent researcher who completed her doctorate at TU Dresden) will contribute her expertise for the collection and analysis of the extensive data sets. Using the optimization tool ROBBE (a German acronym translating to “spatial optimization of forest stand structure in consideration of single-tree effects”), she will model the best method for extracting trees from a forest stand. Other factors such as water supply at the study sites will also be investigated. The optimization tool will continue to be developed during the project and linked with the software for calculating the storm damage risk. The project team hopes to be able to obtain essential recommendations for forestry practices. 

Media inquiries:
Dr. Katja Skibbe
WAIKLIM Project Coordinator
Chair of Silviculture
Tel.: +49 351 463-31311

https://tu-dresden.de/bu/umwelt/forst/wb/waldbau