Project coordinator from INCDS:
Senior researcher I Dr. Nicu Constantin Tudose
About OptFor-EU
With a duration of 4 years (2023−2026), the project will support the adaptation and mitigation capacity of forests in Europe.
The project is coordinated by the Romanian National Meteorological Administration and will be implemented by a consortium of 16 partners from 9 European countries including Romania through the “Marin Drăcea” National Research and Development Institute. The project partners will collaborate to optimize management practices, provide forest ecosystem services, increase the absorption of emissions by forests, increase the resilience and mitigation capacity of forests to climate change.
OptFor-EU will address all 14 types of European forests, over 3 million hectares of forests, including 1.84 million hectares of protected areas.
The specific objectives
- Improving the characterization of forest ecosystem services in Europe;
- Providing a framework for modeling forest ecosystem services;
- Empowering and supporting forest managers and other stakeholders in implementing sustainable forest management through scientifically documented decisions that improve FES (including decarbonization) and forest resilience;
- Development of an innovative decision support system to optimize forest management practices;
- Connecting different European strategic priorities, science and relevant stakeholders in the forest sector.
Through its objectives, the project addresses a priority challenge for Europe. By 2050, significant reductions in CO2 emissions and increased CO2 storage are needed to reach both the 1.5 ⁰C threshold of global warming established by the Paris Agreement and the climate neutrality objective of the European Green Deal. CO2 storage by forests offsets increased emissions and creates a large-scale buffer against climate change.
OprFor-EU will use existing datasets, modeling results and integrated solutions to develop together with decision makers the first DSS that will enable forest managers to gain a deep understanding of possible current and future changes in forest processes, services ecosystems, vulnerabilities, costs and adaptive capacities for a range of forest management practices and climate and socio-economic scenarios. Exploitation of DSS will provide useful results that will enable forest managers in Europe to adopt the most appropriate forest management practices in order to achieve certain specific objectives, such as, but not limited to:
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation
- Maintaining and increasing biodiversity
- Stimulating the circular forest economy
- Adopting nature-based solutions (NBS)
- Integration of socio-economic factors
- Forest protection and rehabilitation through afforestation and reforestation activities
The main objective of OptFor-EU
OptFor-EU aims to develop, together with forest managers and other stakeholders, a Decision Support System (DSS) to provide them with appropriate options, through scientifically documented decisions, to adapt and mitigate climate change in order to optimize ecosystem services (FES) (including decarbonisation) and increasing the resilience of forests and their capacities to mitigate climate change in Europe.
The specific objectives
- Improving the characterization of forest ecosystem services in Europe;
- Providing a framework for modeling forest ecosystem services;
- Empowering and supporting forest managers and other stakeholders in implementing sustainable forest management through scientifically documented decisions that improve FES (including decarbonization) and forest resilience;
- Development of an innovative decision support system to optimize forest management practices;
- Connecting different European strategic priorities, science and relevant stakeholders in the forest sector.
Through its objectives, the project addresses a priority challenge for Europe. By 2050, significant reductions in CO2 emissions and increased CO2 storage are needed to reach both the 1.5 ⁰C threshold of global warming established by the Paris Agreement and the climate neutrality objective of the European Green Deal. CO2 storage by forests offsets increased emissions and creates a large-scale buffer against climate change.
OprFor-EU will use existing datasets, modeling results and integrated solutions to develop together with decision makers the first DSS that will enable forest managers to gain a deep understanding of possible current and future changes in forest processes, services ecosystems, vulnerabilities, costs and adaptive capacities for a range of forest management practices and climate and socio-economic scenarios. Exploitation of DSS will provide useful results that will enable forest managers in Europe to adopt the most appropriate forest management practices in order to achieve certain specific objectives, such as, but not limited to:
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation
- Maintaining and increasing biodiversity
- Stimulating the circular forest economy
- Adopting nature-based solutions (NBS)
- Integration of socio-economic factors
- Forest protection and rehabilitation through afforestation and reforestation activities
Case studies
The eight CSAs, located in Norway, Lithuania, UK, Germany, Austria, Romania, Spain and Italy, were selected based on the following criteria:
- include all EFT (see here on page 28 the different European forest type classes), and relevant ecosystems in terms of decarbonisation potential;
- include a high variety of FMP covering a full gradient of intensities;
- include managed and unmanaged, old-growth and primary forests, to evaluate the forest management legacy on climate change mitigation and on providing key FES;
- application of sustainable FMP which assure the providing and regulating of ecological, economic and socio-cultural FES;
- application of forest certification system and socio-economic analyses to improve the forest-based mitigation strategies;
- the existence of local studies about the carbon sequestration and providing with other key FES and data availability;
- forest managers’, NGOs, and other stakeholders’ interest for climate mitigation strategies and NBS;
- inclusion of forest affected by disturbances due to CC or with low resilience potential e.g., current habitat unsuitable for the actual forest type.
Partenes
- Administraţia Naţională de Meteorologie R.A. (MeteoRo), Romania
- University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon GmbH (HRN), Germany
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
- BlueBiloba Startup Innovativa S.R.L. (BB), Italy
- Mykolo Romerio Universitetas (MRU), Lithuania
- Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy Stichting (IEECP), Netherlands
- University of Southern Norway (USN), Norway
- “Marin Drăcea” National Institute for R&D in Forestry (INCDS), Romania
- Software Imagination & Vision (SIMAVI), Romania
- World Wide Fund for Nature Romania (WWF RO), Romania
- Ambienta Agricultural & Forestry Engineering & Services (AMB), Spain
- Serveis de Suport a la Gestió, SL (ENT), Spain
- University of Exeter (UNEXE), United Kingdom
- Met Office (MOHC), United Kingdom
- University of Leicester (UoL), United Kingdom
Funding
Funded by the European Union Horizon Europe program, based on contract No. 101060554 The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the contracting authority can be held responsible for them.
Contact
Project website www.optforeu.eu
Email: contact@optforeu.eu; cntudose@yahoo.com; mirabelamarin@yahoo.com; office@icas.ro
Linkedin și Twitter: @OptForEU
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