Climate-smart forest management in times of drought
On 22 January, Sanne Verdonck successfully defended her PhD thesis at KU Leuven. The study was conducted in collaboration with INBO. Her research focused on one key question: can forest management increase the resilience of our forests to increasing drought?
Climate change is causing droughts to occur more frequently and intensely, with major consequences for our forests. That is why we investigated how management intensity influences not only drought stress, but also tree growth, the microclimate and life on the forest floor. The research focused on the beech and oak forests of the Brabantse Wouden National Park.
The results – also tailored to forest managers – show that thinning can stimulate tree growth, but has only a limited effect on reducing drought stress. It also appeared that forests lose their cooling effect in summer when the canopy is opened too much. Soil fauna, on the other hand, benefits from a wide variety of habitats. There is no “best” management strategy that promotes all aspects at once. Climate-smart forest management therefore requires spatial variation: some zones remain closed to protect the microclimate, others are more open to stimulate growth, while heterogeneity in the landscape promotes biodiversity. By managing forests as a diverse mosaic, we can support different aspects of the ecosystem.
The PhD was supervised by Bart Muys (KUL), Koenraad Van Meerbeek (KUL) and Arno Thomaes (INBO).
