Carpathians, Romania

Climate change challenge

Link to Case Study results here

The study area will consist of two forests from the Northern Carpathian Mountains (Frasin and Slatioara). Most of the forests (90%) are situated in a mountain. The main species are Norway spruce, beech and silver fir. The deciduous species represents 27%. The main drivers of change in forest resource are climate change (more drought), and insect damages. There are experiences in the region that insects appear in stands where are no harvesting operations.

Response to the challenge

The natural drivers will lead to unsustainable forest management practices, and perhaps to the need to change the approach. Economic difficulties encountered today by the managers will enforce the trend towards unsustainable practices. The uncertainty of ownership created and will still create pressure on the forest management.

The main objective for this case study is to calibrate and run a generic model in the situation of the Central European mountainous forests. The main drivers of change in forest resource from the social perspective are changes in land ownership which could mean abrupt changes in the silviculture (thinning intensity, cutting ages). Forecast climate change scenarios show increase of temperature and decrease of rainfall (serious drought in summer time, incertitude regarding the rainfall in winter time), with potential impact on forests situated in a hilly region and on biomass of young spruce-based stands.

Who will carry on the research and what models are applied

Landscape level model LandClim is used to simulate vegetation dynamic in mountainous environment. The modules developed over years will enable to study the impact of the main drivers of concern in the Romanian case study. Adaptive management will be explored using the harvest module by defining potential management scenarios for each management unit within the forest district studied following the silvicultural trends. The simulations will be run on the forest district landscapes designed from a digital elevation model, stand and soil information, climate data and forest ownership maps.

This case study is carried on by University Stefan Cel Mare, Suceava (USV) and the contact persons there are Laura Bouriaud (bouriaud(at)usv.ro) and Gabriel Duduman (gduduman(at)usv.ro).

Where the case study is situated, who owns the land

The study area will consist of two forests of a total surface of 12800 ha. Public forest management involves the State and municipalities while in the private sector forests can be divided between the church, communes and other community forests and individuals. The main forest manager is Romsilva who manages the state forests and, on a voluntary basis, the forests belonging to other owners than state, i.e. municipalities, communes, churches, associations of individual private forest owners. Ownership transition affects the activities in Forest district Frasin, because almost all the forestland is claimed back by an association representing the ancient Orthodox Churches Communities (Fondul religionar Ortodox) from Bucovina.

More information in Romanian language can be found at: http://www.silvic.usv.ro/motive