MOTIVE

Which trees can adapt best to climate change - this is one of the key questions which the newly started project "MOdels for AdapTIVE forest Management" (MOTIVE) is trying to answer. MOTIVE investigates adaptive management strategies that address climate and land use change. It also examines the impacts of these changes with respect to a broad range of forest goods and services. The project focuses on a wide range of European forest types under different intensities of forest management. Specific attention will be given to uncertainties and risks and how they can be considered in improved decision support tools.

MOTIVE seeks to develop and evaluate strategies that can adapt forest management practices to balance multiple objectives under changing environmental conditions. The evaluation of different adaptive management systems will take place within a scenario analysis and a regional landscape framework. A wide range of possible scenarios will be taken into account from optimistic predictions ("no major change for forest ecosystems") including possible opportunities offered by climate change (e.g. increased tree growth in northern areas) to worst case scenarios ("extreme deterioration of the growth conditions for trees") on different time scales (short-, mid-, long term). The main forest types in Europe for the most important bioclimatic regions will be covered.