Forest

Tree Species and Forest Habitat Suitability

We assessed the potential response of European forests to scenarios of climate change by modelling tree species and forest type habitat suitability under current and future climate conditions.

Tree species distribution maps are useful in several forestry applications. In the context of the impacts from climate change they are useful to compare between current potential and observed distribution of species, and as reference between current distribution and future potential distributions. Further details on model assumptions and theoretical backgrounds of suitability modelling are found in (1).

Figure 1: Distribution of the input field data classified according to the European forest types categories.

Figure 2: Habitat suitability of European forest categories (Casalegno et al., 2011).

Additional information on tree distributions can be found in the Tree Atlas.

Suitability maps of 28 tree species are accessible in the JRC data catalogue.

References:
(1) Casalegno, S., Amatulli, G., Bastrup-Birk, A., Durrant, T., Pekkarinen, A. (2011): Modelling and mapping the suitability of European forest formations at 1-km resolution, European Journal of Forest Research, 130, 971-981 doi: 10.1007/s10342-011-0480-x
(2) Casalegno, S., Amatulli, G., Camia, A., Nelson, A., Pekkarinen, A. (2010): Vulnerability of Pinus cembra L. in the Alps and the Carpathian mountains under present and future climates. Forest Ecology and Management, 259, 750-761 doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.10.001