Photo: Johannes Plenio
Publish Date: 07.05.2021
Category: Interdisciplinary research, Our contribution to sustainable development goals
Sustainable development goals: 13 Climate action, 15 Life on land (Indicators)
In the future the forestry and wood industry will require certain adaptations due to climate change, which is affecting the composition of forests and varieties of timber. Increases in average annual temperatures, changes in the distribution of rainfall and other factors are altering the relative proportions between conifers and deciduous trees in Slovenia’s forests. The proportion of spruce is falling, while that of beech, which is more adaptable, is increasing.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." (Charles Darwin)
Climate change will increasingly favour deciduous trees in Slovenia’s forests (Photography: Dr Milan Šernek)
A three-year international project was started in 2021 under the programme “Horizon 2020 - Twinning of research institutions”, which is being coordinated by Mendel University in Brno, in the Czech Republic, along with the University of Ljubljana and research institutions in Sweden, Germany and Austria.
The ASFORCLIC project, entitled “Adaption strategies in forestry under global climate change impact”, is focused on adaptations in the forest-wood chain that will be necessary due to climate change. Climate change is impacting the composition of forests and the processes of generating wood, as well as its properties, which in turn affect its use and further processing.
The general aim of the project is for the partners to collaborate in raising research excellence in the field of forestry and wood technology, and to offer support to researchers setting out on their careers. The project is being pursued through various forms of cooperation: short and longer research visits by lecturers and young researchers among institutions, thematic workshops and conferences, administrative, technical and scientific training and disseminating and publicising the research results.
The Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana is the Slovenian institution participating in the project. Actively involved in the project are researchers from the Faculty’s Department of Forestry and Department of Wood Sciences and Technology, at which Prof. Dr Milan Šernek, the Slovenian coordinator of the project, is based.
Links: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/952314