Forest ecosystems cover about 35% of the European surface, where they play a key role for the maintenance of biodiversity and the provision of many other ecosystem services, including water cycle regulation, erosion control, habitat creation, carbon storage and sequestration, the production of market goods and both cultural and recreative services. Land abandonment in rural areas and extensive afforestation programs by national forest services have contributed to forest expansion and densification since the 1950’s in many European countries, particularly in the Mediterranean region. However, the increasing occurrence of climate extremes, such as droughts and heat waves, is rapidly changing the organization and function of these forest landscapes, compromising the provision of their ecological services under the influence of climate change. Common effects of climate extremes on forest ecosystems include the reduction of forest productivity, increased canopy defoliation, tree mortality, insect outbreaks and extensive wildfires. For example, the 2022 summer heat wave that recently affected western Europe, combined with prolonged drought conditions, resulted in over 8,500 km2 surface burnt by wildfires, with an important impact on forests ecosystems and protected Natura 2000 areas.
The development of rapid forest surveying methods and large-scale vulnerability assessment tools constitutes an essential challenge for the development of adaptive forest management in the present context of change. Currently, different types of remote sensing data (e.g., optical, multispectral, radar, LiDAR) from satellite, aerial and UAV platforms can be used to evaluate forest structure and dynamics. In fact, the increased availability of remote sensing data with a broad variety of temporal, spatial and spectral resolution can largely facilitate the detection and evaluation of forest ecosystems for environmental monitoring, modeling and description. This session will explore remote sensing methods for climate change risk and forest vulnerability evaluation, including mapping and analysis of, among others, the effects of drought, forest dieback and wildfires as well as forest structure and forest resilience assessment. We also welcome contributions dealing with the integration of remote sensing data with field observations and other spatial geo-information systems for the study of forest dynamics, forest restoration and adaptive forest management. We plan to organize the session in English, as a regular session with a series of oral talks and also some contributions as poster presentations for additional discussion
Mariano Moreno De Las Heras (1); Antonio J. Molina (2); Guillermo Palacios (3); Eduardo A. Garcia-Braga (1); Antonio Peñalver-Alcalá (1); Xavier Úbeda (1)
(1) Department of Geography, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, (2) Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Environment, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, (3) Department of Forest Engineering, University of Cordoba, Spain
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