The coastal regions of the North Sea are frequently haunted by storms that cause wind damage to the forests. Changing practices in forest and landscape management have potentially added to the vulnerability of these regions. According to some predictions, the effects of global warming will further exacerbate those problems.The STORMRISK project has natural landscape conservation and resilience concerns at its core. This will be achieved through implementing measures for improved planning, restoration and management of forested landscapes in wind-exposed areas around the North Sea.

The coastal regions of the North Sea are frequently haunted by storms that cause wind damage to the forests. Changing practices in forest and landscape management have potentially added to the vulnerability of these regions. According to some predictions, the effects of global warming will further exacerbate those problems.The STORMRISK project has natural landscape conservation and resilience concerns at its core. This will be achieved through implementing measures for improved planning, restoration and management of forested landscapes in wind-exposed areas around the North Sea.

Expected Outcomes

Transnational collaboration between researchers, forest administrators, landscape planners, managers and landowners to reduce wind damage to natural and cultural landscapes in the NSR. Compilation of knowledge and various scenarios for the future climate in the North Sea Region. Supply a ?toolbox? for decision makers, landowners, planners and managers in the different landscapes of the NSR which will contain information about wind risk to natural and cultural landscapes and how to manage forests in a sustainable way to prevent severe wind damage to woodlands, and to the infrastructure, including rail network, road network, electricity grids, and telecommunications networks. This toolbox will facilitate for planners, owners and managers i.e. end users in the North Sea Region to consider wind risk in the processes of forest and landscape planning. Make documented knowledge on wind damage, risk assessment and management of wind exposed forests easy accessible on a web site.Implement new techniques developed in the Life project ForestSafe using kNN-data and airborne LIDAR, which is an airborne mapping technique, combined with the wind risk model WINDA in order to try out new cost efficent methods of wind risk assessment.Provide a GIS based version of the existing ForestGALES decision support system that can easily be adapted for any area of the NSR that will enable calculation of risk of storm damage across forest landscapes. An adaptable version of the ForestGALES program will be downloadable from the project web-page. To gain experience of storm scenario modelling in the NSR and conduct storm simulation in different landscapes in the NSR. Provide the landowners and other inhabitants in these landscapes with information on the local risk from storm damage. Demonstrate and publish knowledge - at local, regional and national level - about how to develop natural and cultural landscapes into more resistant structures to reduce the risk of wind damage and the catastrophic impact from a severe stormEstablish and demonstrate 30 hectares of demonstration experiments that shows a range of sustainable future storm resistant forest and landscape types in a full scale.

Activities

Main activities that will contribute to this aim refer to setting management aims and landscape planning in storm stricken areas, gathering and evaluating existing knowledge on wind damage management and restoration, development of general management models for wind risk assessment and the establishment of new, more resilient and sustainable forests and landscapes.

Reported Outcomes

Experience and expertise on how to reduce storm felling in forest landscapes has developed differently in each country around the North Sea. The main aim of the STORMRISK project is to integrate and make accessible the knowledge and experience developed over decades to end-users across the North Sea Region. The project will act as a source of inspiration for landowners and managers and help them to identify not only the means but also the aims for a modernised and multifunctional forest and landscape management. Additionally, risk management of forest landscapes has a great importance to the society as a whole, such as ensuring security around the telecommunication, road, railway and electricity net. The project has initiated contacts with landowners in the different pilot study areas. The information gathered will be evaluated by an expert group and transformed into a toolbox available via the project website (www.stormrisk.eu). Two pilot study landscapes in storm stricken areas in Sweden will be planned in co-operation with land owners and other stakeholders as an important tool in this endeavour. In addition, the ForestGales (Geographical Analysis of the Losses and Effects of Storms in Forestry) version has been developed in order to allow it to be relatively easily adapted for each country of the North Sea Region. The ForestGale is a process based model that provides an understanding of the variability in the wind forest climatology, an estimation of the critical wind speed to cause wind damage and return period for that damage to occur. As part of the project, the ForestGales decision support system will be adapted for use across the North Sea Region as a tool to minimise the risks of storm damage to forests, woodlands and infra-structure. Air-borne LiDAR scanning data from a forest stand in Scotland has been evaluated to estimate the effects of stand structure in the probability of wind damage using ForestGales. The result provided a valid method for monitoring forest structures and its effects on wind stability. "The estimation of wind risk in forests stands using airborne laser scanning" can be downloaded from the project website www.stormrisk.eu.