Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CARE4C (Carbon smart forestry under climate change) Reporting period: 2018-01-01 to 2019-12-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project "In a changing climate, we see the challenge that forestry needs to contribute to a low-carbon emitting society. Whilst forests sequester carbon, they simultaneously release carbon during forest operations. Our ambition is to arrive at an integrated picture of carbon sink and source and to adapt forest management for different climate and forest management regimes. The project ""Carbon smart forestry under climate change"" (CARE4C) strives to develop carbon smart forest management systems for adaption and mitigation in the view of climate change. CARE4C gives a unique opportunity to achieve these objectives by employing a large, multidisciplinary and balanced consortium of excellent academic and non-academic institutions covering the entire chain from empirical research to data evaluation, knowledge integration, statistical and mechanistic modelling model applications, forest management and harvesting. CARE4C contributes to developing and promoting career development and enhance skills of seconded staff members and strengthens the pan-European co-operation. The objectives of CARE4C are to analyse, quantify and model the carbon sink resulting from forest growth, analyse, quantify and model the carbon source by forest operations and risks caused by biotic and abiotic factors, combine the sink and source aspects to an integrated picture and bal-ance of the whole, publish and teach our results and new concept of a carbon smart forestry to enhance knowledge and skills at individual and organizational level, disseminate achievements and communicate the project to forest science, forest practice, general public and policy makers at different levels." Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far A sound data basis for research was compiled covering a huge range of environmental condition and forest types. CARE4C decided to focus on mono-specific and mixed pine stands, as this forest types represent large forest areas in Europe and South Africa. We also focus on dynamics in close-to-nature stands as an important reference for the effect of forest management on growth and resilience of forest stands. The data basis also includes a series of newly established thinning trials across a climatic gradient in SA. The plots were set in monospecific pine stands. The plot design allows for the investigation of thinning effects on single tree and stand level. A series of existing yield trials in close to nature stands in the Garden Route National Park were involved in WP 2. In 2018 plots in monocultures of pine, oak and beech, as well as in corresponding pine-oak and pine-beech mixed stands were scanned by means of TLS technology in PL. Some stands were thinned to investigate the effect of thinning on tree’s growth, resilience and resistance during drought stress. At some sites Terrestrial Lidar data were obtained to allow for in detail analyses. Data are currently analysed in terms of physiological and morphological responses of trees to climate change, within tree partitioning and allometry shift under climate change, and resource partitioning between trees in forest stands und climate change. The research work aims at contributing to the understanding of carbon sequestration capacity of foerest under changing environments.A second research team focusses on enhancing the knowledge about carbon emmision by forest operations and through forest risks. The achievement resulted in a systematic review on the fuel consumption of forestry machinery. The review aims at integrating the CO2FORMEC Database to analyse the current protocols and tools for the determination of the fuel consumption and the derived carbon emission in machinery. The work is of fundamental importance as it allows to identify the current criticalities in the research activity applied on fuel consumption and therefore on the determination of carbon dioxide emissions in forestry. SU and UP established a verification activity in the use of data obtained from the CAN-BUS system based on StanForD protocol of forestry machinery. The historical data of a pair of forestry machines of individual companies were downloaded and data collection started. The goal is to define a shared data collection protocol to obtain comparable consumption and emission indices. Methods for fuel consumption measurement on forest machines were discussed. In addition to the fundamental choices of equipping the FBZ machines with supplementary measuring units, the existing iFOS system was examined for its use. Therefor measurement cycles for fuel consumption recording with the Forwarder 2020 – iFOS set-up were made. Within the field tests the reliability of the detection system and reveal weaknesses of the existing system were tested. With this setup, in a 10ms frequency, the fuel consumption of the machine was logged on the short-term storage of the CAN reader and was then synchronized with a tablet PC for further processing. For the tests, the forwarder was surveyed on four skid trails under real working conditions. In 10 hauling cycles the amount of 104 m3 of timber was handled. A software extension was programmed that allows the iFOS data aggregation process to be implemented on an on-board telematic module. Due to the requirements to the software, further tests and adoptions must be made to fit the desired needs.45 staff members of the participating beneficiaries and partners have been seconded since the beginning of the project. There is a strong networking activity within CARE4C resulting in substantial exchange of knowledge. Secondees profited from their exchange in terms of career and capacity building. 15 PhD students used their secondments to progress in their thesis. CARE4C provided training courses on specific forest science related topics targeted at young researchers and institutional staff members. Additional seminars, lectures and presentations were given by seconded staff members. 8 publications and 16 oral contributions to conferences underpin the relevance of the topic and ambition of CARE4C to contribute to a low-carbon society. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) By highly innovative approaches, CARE4C aims at substantially expanding knowledge about climate change impacts on C-sequestration by forests as well as about mitigation possibilities through intelligent low carbon forestry and risk reduction. We trace the knowledge from understanding to modelling and application. We apply a multilevel and multidisciplinary approach to overcome the restrictions concerning the transferability of locally and case study focused results. The study area encompasses a broad range of climatic zones from Mediterranean to subboreal areas providing highly different growing conditions and landscapes differently affected by climate change. It also offers the opportunity to study tree species that currently already grow beyond their natural range, which supports the anticipation of climate change scenarios. The project connects countries, where both, integrative and segregating approaches are prevailing in forest management. The forest types of interest include simple structured pure and mixed stands, as well as complex close to nature forests. We track climate induced impacts on C-sequestration. Carbon emissions from forest operations are addressed by investigating the carbon footprint for the forest value chain. Carbon losses induced by risks (market fluctuations, pests, diseases) are assessed and modelled. Portfolio Theory is applied to optimize forest management in terms of low carbon release.
