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Abstract: Nowadays, there is contrasting evidence between the ongoing continuing and widespread environmental degradation and the many means to implement environmental sustainability actions starting from good policies (e.g. EU New Green Deal, CAP), powerful technologies (e.g. new satellites, drones, IoT sensors), large databases and large stakeholder engagement (e.g. EIP-AGRI, living labs). Here, we argue that to tackle the above contrasting issues dealing with land degradation, it is very much required to develop and use friendly and freely available web-based operational tools to support both the implementation of environmental and agriculture policies and enable to take positive environmental sustainability actions by all stakeholders. Our solution is the S-DSS LANDSUPPORT platform, consisting of a free web-based smart Geospatial CyberInfrastructure containing 15 macro-tools (and more than 100 elementary tools), co-designed with different types of stakeholders and their different needs, dealing with sustainability in agriculture, forestry and spatial planning. LANDSUPPORT condenses many features into one system, the main ones of which were (i) Web-GIS facilities, connection with (ii) satellite data, (iii) Earth Critical Zone data and (iv) climate datasets including climate change and weather forecast data, (v) data cube technology enabling us to read/write when dealing with very large datasets (e.g. daily climatic data obtained in real time for any region in Europe), (vi) a large set of static and dynamic modelling engines (e.g. crop growth, water balance, rural integrity, etc.) allowing uncertainty analysis and what if modelling and (vii) HPC (both CPU and GPU) to run simulation modelling ‘on-the-fly’ in real time. Two case studies (a third case is reported in the Supplementary materials), with their results and stats, covering different regions and spatial extents and using three distinct operational tools all connected to lower land degradation processes (Crop growth, Machine Learning Forest Simulator and GeOC), are featured in this paper to highlight the platform's functioning. Landsupport is used by a large community of stakeholders and will remain operational, open and free long after the project ends. This position is rooted in the evidence showing that we need to leave these tools as open as possible and engage as much as possible with a large community of users to protect soils and land.
Keywords: land degradation, land management, soil, spatial decision support system, sustainability
Published in DiRROS: 13.11.2023; Views: 130; Downloads: 82
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Abstract: Two European pine species, Pinus sylvestris and Pinus nigra, are experiencing dieback as a result of the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events. Recent species distribution models predicted shrinkage of ecological niches in the near future and shifted their habitat range towards the northeast. Consequently, P. sylvestris may contract its range and P. nigra may expand in Central Europe. To test whether native pine species have an advantage over introduced pine species in acclimation to a novel climate in Central Europe, we investigated the climate sensitivity and vitality of P. sylvestris, P. nigra and P. rigida. We sampled mature stands of each pine species at three sites in Central Europe, for which we determined climate–growth relationships: temporal stability of temperature and precipitation correlations with tree-ring width and resilience indices. Based on remote sensing data, we assessed differences in surface reflectance and photosynthetic activity obtained from the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI). Our analyses revealed that the climate sensitivity and surface reflectance of pines are not due to their nativeness in Central Europe but better explained by local site conditions. The specificity and variability of drought events may determine both the homogeneous and diverse susceptibility of species to a negative water balance. Therefore, the character of future climatic extremes seems to be the key to understanding the acclimation of native and non-native pine species in Central Europe. Because our study do not provide evidence of the superiority of non-native pine species over P. sylvestris, and the potential impacts of introduced species on local habitats seem poorly understood in the face of climate change, we urge particular caution in introducing species with unrecognized invasive potential.
Keywords: Pinus sylvestris, Pinus nigra, Pinus rigida, acclimation, climate sensitivity, drought resilience
Published in DiRROS: 18.09.2023; Views: 193; Downloads: 37
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Abstract: We investigated several aspects of windthrow that are relevant to our understanding and management of forest ecosystems. As an example, we used an extreme event in December 2017, when the strongest storm in recent history occurred in the Slovenian Dinaric High Karst. We examined influential factors such as soil properties, wind speed, precipitation and ecological consequences for the affected forests. Soil properties were measured around standing and fallen silver fir trees at all three research sites. Tree species composition in the regeneration was observed on plots with chemical and acoustic ungulate deterrents and on control plots without deterrents. Economic estimates of yield loss due to damage were calculated at the national level. A model of the potential threat from windthrow was also developed based on data collected from windthrow events and meteorological data over the past 20 years. Our results indicate that soil depth and mineral fraction depth were similar at sites with and without damaged trees and were not the determining factors for tree toppling. Plots with acoustic deterrents showed the most effective regeneration development, the least decline in silver fir and the greatest increase in noble hardwood seedlings, while plots with chemical deterrents showed the least browsing damage. The estimated economic loss of €16.1 million is 6.6% less than the harvest under normal conditions. The economic loss was relatively low due to the nature of the storm, with the predominant type of damage being uprooted trees with no damaged trunks. The windthrow hazard model revealed that a large number of consecutive events with strong winds in each section weakened the stand, which was subsequently knocked down during the next extreme wind and rainfall event.
Keywords: natural forest regeneration, windthrow, economic loss, browsing, ungulate deterrents, forest soil properties, potential threat model
Published in DiRROS: 27.06.2023; Views: 742; Downloads: 387
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Keywords: monitoring, nacionalna gozdna inventura, odmrla lesna biomasa, temeljnica, površina gozda, lesna zaloga, vzorčne ploskve, poročila
Published in DiRROS: 17.01.2023; Views: 322; Downloads: 0

Abstract: Tree rings, wood density and the climate–growth relationship of four Douglas-fir provenances were analysed separately for the juvenile and adult phases. Four provenances were selected from an existing IUFRO provenance trial planted in 1971 based on their diameter at breast height and vitality. Increment cores were extracted from individual trees, on which we measured tree-ring widths (RW), earlywood widths (EWW) and latewood widths (LWW). Wood density was assessed in standing trees using resistance drilling. The climate–growth correlations were calculated between provenance chronologies of RW, EWW, LWW and latewood share, and the day-wise aggregated Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The analysis was done separately for the juvenile and mature phases of growth. Provenances 1064 (Jefferson) and 1080 (Yelm) exhibited larger annual radial increments than provenances 1028 (Merrit) and 1089 (Cathlamet). The two provenances with the highest annual radial increment in the juvenile phase did not exhibit the same trend in the adult phase. In all provenances, RW, and consequently EWW and LWW, were wider in the juvenile than in adult phase. The share of latewood was in all cases higher in juvenile wood than in mature wood. All four provenances had similar wood densities in both analyzed growth phases. Our analysis showed that when selecting the most promising provenance for planting, possible changes in relative growth rate from the juvenile to adult phase need to be considered.
Keywords: Pseudotsuga menziesii, SPEI, juvenile phase, adult phase, latewood share, resistance drilling
Published in DiRROS: 21.11.2022; Views: 348; Downloads: 73
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