Boreal forests must deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and safeguard biodiversity, while fueling the functioning of the economy as renewable resources. However, the Nordic and Baltic forests are affected by climate warming that occurs more rapidly in higher latitudes than in the global mean with subsequent increasing risks of multiple hazards, such as fires, pests, drought and storms. The growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events and slow-onset climate change pose a serious risk to these forests and may compromise the ecosystem services they provide. Hazards also interact with each other potentially leading to multiplying and cascading effects. As the time span of forest growth is many decades, adaptation to climate change induced disturbances is difficult and needs to be planned and implemented early on.
The LAUMA project will bring together experts from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Latvia to characterize the multiple climate risks to boreal forests, explore their interactions and compound effects and finally identify the best management strategies and policy directions to enhance the climate resilience of forests. The project focuses on four hazards to forests: drought, fires, windstorms and pests; and explores their interactions as well as suitable management strategies to achieve adaptation. The project has three inter-related objectives: (1) to investigate how climate and weather conditions will change in the Nordic and Baltic forests relative to what nature and society are currently adapted to, (2) to examine how different climatic hazards will individually, and in concert, impact the forests and the forest sector, (3) to investigate how forest management and policies can best enhance climate change adaptation while maintaining ecosystem services and the economic viability of the forest sector.
Achieving sustainable forest management amidst intensifying climate change and socioeconomic pressures requires integrated understanding of policy interlinkages between land use, forestry, and climate change adaptation. Ultimately, LAUMA will provide insights on future policy directions and actions to strengthen sustainable forest management and enhance the climate resilience of the forestry sector, as well as improve transnational cooperation and cross-learning between the Nordic and Baltic countries. The project will offer forward-looking and innovative solutions for resilient, equitable and sustainable forest futures.
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