Search Results

Soil organic carbon changes in UK forest soils

Rita Razauskaite, PhD studentship, University of Aberdeen (2015-2018) Summary Forest soils contain large amounts of carbon, which can be lost through forest operations or changing environmental conditions. As forests are perennial with infrequent disturbance, soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation differs from highly disturbed land uses, with significant accumulation occurring in deeper soil horizons...

Forest damage by deer depends on cross‐scale interactions between climate, deer density and landscape structure

This journal paper investigates the factors that drive deer damage to woodlands using the National Forest Inventory sample square data. We found that the likelihood of damage to trees depends on cross-scale interactions between climate, deer density and landscape structure. The complex interactive effects uncovered are difficult to interpret. We therefore provide an interactive Deer Damage Tool for practitioners to visualize how afforestation is likely to influence the probability of deer damage in different forests and regions across Britain.

A sequential multi-level framework to improve habitat suitability modelling

We provide a sequential framework for improved multi-scale habitat suitability modelling or species distribution modelling. We apply it to the lesser horseshoe bat in Britain to demonstrate its improved accuracy and ecological inference.

Predicting hedgehog mortality risks on British roads using habitat suitability modelling

An analysis of citizen science hedgehog roadkill data has revealed why, when and where vehicle-hedgehog collisions are most likely to occur. The approach involved a multi-scale habitat suitability model. Suburban areas with mixtures of urban and grassland were found to be roadkill hotspots.

BioCoRe: An interactive/adaptable landscape ecology approach for targeting restoration

Andrew Rattey Chloe Bellamy Kevin Watts

Forestry Facts & Figures 2019

A summary of statistics about woodland and forestry in the UK.

Exploring changes in ecosystem services under varying scenarios

Exploration of the resilience of woodlands to future change by assessing how ecosystem service values and natural capital stocks of woodlands may be affected by change through the application of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) scenarios and different management approaches, e.g. forest diversification through the application of forest management alternatives

Detecting young trees from space

FR have established how to detect young trees from space using synthetic aperture RADAR and machine learning techniques. This will support the monitoring of the planting of tens of thousands of restock sites and new woodland across Britain. In searching for a solution researchers hypothesised that even if the trees are too small to see, maybe we could ‘feel’ them using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). A different technique to utilising optical data, SAR provides ‘fuzzy’ data on the presence of objects, their size, orientation and texture. The research found that this was possible and data on whether sites had tree cover or not has been derived for extensive areas of Britain and NFI are working to operationalise the process.

Assessing the resilience of UK forests to extreme climatic events

This project aims to quantify the historic impact and legacy of extreme climatic events on UK forests using tree-ring chronologies, climate and soil data. It focuses on species of major importance to UK forestry in order to provide the information basis for building adaptive capacity into future forest planning and decision making.

Trends in surface water chemistry in afforested Welsh catchments

Analysis of 22 years of water chemistry data from afforested Welsh catchments revealed trends indicative of recovery from acidification

BRIGIT – A consortium for enhancing UK surveillance and response to Xylella fastidiosa

A multi-partner GB wide transdisciplinary project that takes a holistic approach to enhance diagnostics, identify factors that could lead to spread and formulate response strategies to mitigate the devastating effects of X. fastidiosa.

FOSPREF-Wind

A project within the EFI Network Fund, developing a FOSS GIS modelling platform for stand growth and risk of wind damage.