Dealing with impacts on forests under changing end-use demand, climate change, natural disturbances and policy goals

Forests in Germany are facing major structural changes (e.g. due to forest conversion) and ecological challenges (e.g. disturbances due to extreme events). However, developments are also emerging in wood use that will require forestry and timber industry to be able to adjust to disruptive events in the future.

In order to strengthen the ability of actors (forest owners, companies, politicians) to adapt themselves and react, scientific analyses on forest and timber market developments in relation to important future drivers are needed. These can be developed through model-based scenarios. Important drivers of the models in this project are demographic and economic developments, climate change, natural disturbances, policy measures in climate and nature protection as well as in the bioeconomy.

The main objective of the project is to develop strategies for sustainable forest management and wood use, taking into account expected corridors of forest development. The project has four sub-objectives:

1. Determination of scenarios of possible wood use and resulting demand for wood raw materials based on demand developments in end product sectors;

2. Description of possible development corridors using model analyses of forest developments under changes in timber demand, climate change, natural disturbances and policy requirements;

3. Analysis of climate effectiveness considering carbon storage capacity in forests and wood products and fossil fuel substitution;

4. Analysis of response options for forest management and wood use, and provision of an information basis to support decision-making by stakeholders under extreme economic and ecological changes and to develop adaptation and response strategies.