Seminar: Monitoring forest dynamics under climate change

Part of the Cycle of seminars: Understanding and managing climate risk

Monitoring forest dynamics under climate change: Integrating multiple approaches and timescales

Forests represent key ecosystems to help human society coping with climate change by sequestering and storing for long time huge amounts of carbon across different components of the ecosystem. At the same time, the contribution of forests to the carbon cycle may vary substantially along environmental gradients, and climate change may significantly affect their structure and productivity. An ensemble of different research approaches is needed to understand ecological processes in the short- (i.e., weekly to annual) and the long-term (i.e. decadal) and quantify, both locally and globally, the contribution of forests to the carbon cycle. We will present available approaches to monitoring forest response to climate change and forest climate mitigation potential, including both remote sensing techniques and field survey, with a focus on the role of natural forests in climate change mitigation strategy.

Contact: Marco Gaetani — marco.gaetani@iusspavia.it