Some insights into adaptive silviculture and forest management under climate change uncertainties

Abstract

Forest managers have to respond to the need for climate-adaptive strategies in the face of observed and projected climatic changes although, on-the-ground forest adaptation research is rarely available to indicate what adaptation measures or strategies might be successful in preparing forest ecosystems to deal with climate change. Forest managers are also challenged by limited locally or regionally pertinent information on climate projections and probable impacts. The adaptive silviculture for climate change needs to respond to these obstacles for implementing climate adaptation strategies by providing a network of replicated operational-scale research sites. A chain of experimental silvicultural trials are required to be established in different forest types all over the country with the objective to produce a multi-regional study with locally-suited climate change adaptation treatment and to introduce forest managers to thoughts, ways and tools which help to put together climate change considerations into resource management and silvicultural decision-making. Adaptation of the management of forest resources to climate change involves addressing several important aspects to propose a convincing basis for decision-making. This includes knowledge and conviction of managers and decision-makers and mapping of management options for the current as well as future scenario. In this article, some decision-making procedures are discussed focusing on how to take into account the uncertainty and recent information on the climate development and assess alternative management decisions that may also be tailored for agro-forests with some modifications.