Climate actions
During severe wind and ice events, forests with a large number of trees of the same age and height may experience greater damage than those with a diversity of tree sizes and ages. Therefore, in order to increase the resilience of the forest, it is important to increase its structural diversity or the number of layers. This usually means opening in the forest canopy gaps large enough to encourage the growth of young trees, while also maintaining older and/or larger trees. It is important that a forest has trees of many different heights, many different diameters, and many different species. This increases the number of pathways by which a forest can resist and recover from the impacts of disturbance. In addition to that, altering forest structure can also increase the forest’s ability to store carbon by increasing the total number of trees growing in the forest. Maintain the forest diversity over time.
Alter forest structure to reduce severity or extent of wind and ice damage
Objective
Reduce severity or extent of wind and ice damage.
Description
Expected results
Increased diversity of species and structure.
Result indicators
Age of the trees [years]
Involved actors
Governments, forest experts.
Expected timeline for action
Best practices
Criticalities
Scope of the action
Type of proposed actions
Sector of action
Climate impacts
Implementation scale
Source