Congress – INTERFORST 2022

Alternative reforestation strategies

Against the background of the extensive areas of calamity in almost all parts of Germany, which have primarily resulted from the loss of spruce stands, the question of the economic establishment of equally climate-stable and efficient succession stands is highly relevant.

Based on fundamental climate scenarios and different objectives of the forest enterprises of the various forest ownership types within the framework of multifunctional forestry, the most diverse aspects of natural and artificial stand establishment are examined. In any case, the subsequent forest generation should be oriented towards the provision of a variety of ecosys-tem services. The tree species composition of the stands created in the course of natural re-generation is determined in particular by the in advance established regeneration as well as the regeneration potentials depen¬ding on former stand and the spatial situation. The forest stands to be created in the context of reforestation allow for the consideration of an extended tree species spectrum. Thus, in addition to native tree species that are also suitable for the site in the future, a considerable proportion of non-native guest tree species that are adapted to the site conditions to be expected in the future can be taken into account.

The selection of the appropriate regeneration type, the choice of tree species, the design of the mixture form and the required working procedures are presented on the basis of ideal-typical examples and evaluated on the basis of site-ecological, performance-related and fi-nancial characteristics. For an optimal choice of procedure, the entire enterprise area and the condition of the damaged areas must be considered in advance.

Forest Dieback 2.0 – Myth or Reality?

Wood Resource Mobilisation for Bio-Economy

Timber markets are facing severe challenges. Global demand is expected to continue to rise, climate change induced forest diebacks lead to volatile timber supply, environmental and climate change mitigation policies strive for increasing the forest carbon stocks at the expense of timber harvest and utilisation, foreseeably inducing timber imports, e. g. into the EU, to be expanded; and traditional markets change as e. g. paper markets are going to dwindle while new products like dissolving pulp emerge. To successfully navigate through this changing timber markets, timber market analysis can play a crucial role. We will present past trends as well as modelbased projections to show possible consequences of societal and political changes on national and international timber markets and to provide clues for necessary actions to be taken by policy and industry.

Wood use in Germany

Wood, as a renewable resource, can be processed into a variety of products. While producers of sawnwood source wood resources directly from forests, producers of wood-based panels and wood pulp use considerable amounts of wood residues from wood processing industries or post-consumer recovered wood. Wood energy is another important topic for the wood resource market, due to the major shares of wood resources used for energy generation. The Thünen Institute of Forestry monitors volume flows in the wood resource market. Often, official statistics do not provide sufficient information to assess volume flows in detail, so that specific questions on wood use have to be investigated in separate research projects. We will provide an overview on our research of the wood resource market at the Thünen Institute. The volume flows in the German wood resource market – starting with roundwood sourced from the forest, to wood residues, up to selected end uses of wood – will be the main focus of the presentation. It will become clear that a considerable proportion of wood residues as well as post-consumer recovered wood is already used in the wood resource market.

Forest Fire Management as a Cross-Sectoral Task: The Freiburg Model

The impact of the climate crisis on the natural and cultural landscapes of Central Europe and the simultaneously increasing risk of forest and open land fires represent a challenge for forestry. With regard to the expected risks, a concept was launched in Freiburg; Germany, brings forest owners, forest services, communities and fire brigades into a joint responsibility. One of the factors that plays a role here is that preventing and fighting landscape fires is a cross-sectional task that must be tackled jointly by forest owners, forest administrations, nature conservation, agriculture, the communities and their fire brigades. In the "Freiburg Model", which was launched in 2012 jointly by the Freiburg-based Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), the Office for Fire Protection and Disaster Management and the Forestry Office of the City of Freiburg, the Employees of the municipal forestry office are equally equipped and trained with hand tools, as are the two special units of the Freiburg Fire Brigade’s “Landscape Fire Task Force”. Repeated joint practice has proven effective in fighting forest fires in 2020 and 2022. In addition to the Freiburg Mmodel, the "Freiburg Landscape Fire Cluster" includes the GFMC, the above-mentioned municipal offices, and a partnership with the industry. In the past two years, this has taken up inspiration for adapted technical new developments and implemented them in innovative solutions.

Forestry 4.0: From Idea to Implementation - Examples from the KWH4.0, S3I-X and EDE4.0 Research Projects

Forestry 4.0 aims to transfer Industry 4.0 concepts to the forest and wood sector. Researchers from RIF e.V. in Dortmund, RWTH Aachen University and the Forestry Education Center in Arnsberg are developing basic principles in the ERDF infrastructure project Center of Excellence for Forestry 4.0 (KWH4.0). For the development and testing of Forestry 4.0 systems and processes, KWH4.0 provides so-called "Smart Forest Labs" as research infrastructure. An industry working group involves interested industry partners. The concepts are implemented, for example, in the BMBF project S3I-X, which focuses on the handling of forestry data with the help of a "data trustee".

Another example is the project EDE4.0: Extended Dynamic Felling Planning – "Cloud-based Decision Support System for Foresters". The goal of the project is to support dynamic decisions in harvesting and planting different species by combining forestry expertise, latest climate models, local and global forest data. To achieve this, EDI GmbH - Engineering Data Intelligence is collaborating with the Süddeutsches Klimabüro and the Institute of Geography and Geoecology (IFGG) at KIT. The application reduces uncertainties beyond expert forestry knowledge and prepares the information in an understandable way so that it can be used intuitively by foresters on the spot.

Payments for Ecosystem Services of the Forests

Safe and healthy to the forest of the future

The federal occupational safety and health law demands humane interaction in everyday work and thus complies with the universal basic right to physical and mental integrity. At the same time, the numerous laws and ordinances on occupational safety and health with their plethora of regulations point to the complexity of the issue. In addition, not least due to climate change, new and safe working methods need to be established in companies that consider the ongoing shortage of skilled workers and the structure of an ageing society in equal measure.

The concepts of "look – recognise – act" will be used to show how occupational safety and health is represented in everyday forestry operations. The operational organisation of occupational safety and health and the understanding of roles are crucial for this. The focus is on the topics of responsibility, skills and the state of the art, and how the legal requirement to check the effectiveness of measures can be met.

Digitalization in Forest Monitoring and Forest Engineering with Laser Scanning

In the past half century, measurement work in the forestry has not changed und uses the same traditional instruments, e.g., calipers, tapes, clinometers, and the Spiegelrelaskop. Manual measurement with these instruments is labor intensive, and the collected data must be transferred to the digital form prior to the further processing.

Novel methodology is presented for a digital forest inventory, which creates "digital twins" of the forest stands by using a personal laser scanning (PLS). The precise representation of the 3D structure is used to automatically identify the tree positions and to measure the stems and crowns. Such a procedure saves labor costs.

Practice applications demonstrate, how data flow is improved at the forest monitoring - forest engineering interface. The PLS-based forest inventory can be also linked with airborne laser scanning to derive precise and spatially referenced estimates of the damaged growing stock after windthrow, subsequentially allowing for an optimized planning of the harvesting operations. The PLS-based approaches can be also adopted for the automatic measurement of felled logs, the detection of stem damages and the automatic detection of forest road profils.

Thus far, a broad application in forestry practice is hindered by the high acquisition costs of the PLS systems. However, promising results were achieved by using the cheaper mobile laser sensors of the latest iPad/iPhone generation.

Wie resilient ist Europas Wald?

Bedingt durch den fortschreitenden Klimawandel steigt die Baummortalität in Europas Wäldern stark an. Die Dürrejahre 2018-2020 führten zur größten Welle des Baumsterbens in Europa seit mindestens 170 Jahren. Wie resilient sind nun Europas Wälder gegenüber solchen zunehmend häufiger auftretenden Störungen? Basierend auf der Analyse von Satellitendaten zeigt sich, dass sich Wälder in Europa relativ schnell wieder von Störungen erholen – nach im Schnitt 30 Jahren erreichte der Kronenschluss auf gestörten Flächen wieder ähnliche Werte wie vor der Störung. Viele Wälder in Europa haben somit eine hohe Resilienz gegenüber Störungen. Auf 14% der Waldfläche jedoch war die Resilienz gering, d.h. Wälder konnten sich nicht mehr vollständig von einer vorangegangenen Störung erholen. Simulationen zeigen, dass ein weiterer klimabedingter Anstieg von Störungen zu einem abrupten Wandel der Waldstruktur führen könnte, hin zu jüngeren Wäldern und kleineren Bäumen aus wärmeliebenderen Arten. Diese Änderungen könnten bedeutende Auswirkungen auf wichtige Ökosystemleistungen des Waldes haben, wie z.B. die Produktion von Holz, den Schutz vor Naturgefahren oder die Erhaltung der biologischen Vielfalt.

Forestry 4.0: From Idea to Implementation – Examples from the KWH4.0, S3I-X and EDE4.0 Research Projects

Forestry 4.0 aims to transfer Industry 4.0 concepts to the forest and wood sector. Researchers from RIF e.V. in Dortmund, RWTH Aachen University and the Forestry Education Center in Arnsberg are developing basic principles in the ERDF infrastructure project Center of Excellence for Forestry 4.0 (KWH4.0). For the development and testing of Forestry 4.0 systems and processes, KWH4.0 provides so-called "Smart Forest Labs" as research infrastructure. An industry working group involves interested industry partners. The concepts are implemented, for example, in the BMBF project S3I-X, which focuses on the handling of forestry data with the help of a "data trustee".

Raw material potential and utilisation possibilities for hardwoods

In the medium to long term, the market share of wood species will change: For reasons of stability, closeness to nature and the effects of climate change, forests have been actively converted for several decades. This leads to more structured and mixed stands with lower proportions of conifers and higher proportions of hardwoods.

How can the latter be optimally used while considering the diverse and changing demands on the part of the economy, society, and the environment? What opportunities are there for the forestry and wood cluster and what challenges does it have to face?

The presentation gives an overview of the raw material potential of hardwoods, shows new and innovative forms of utilisation and products, highlights current trends and efforts from research and development at universities, institutes and industries, and addresses the interrelationships when using hardwoods as a more and more important resource.

Forests in the Climate Change – The climate-plastic Close to Nature Forest "Kalebsberg" Forestry Operation as a Solution Perspective