Huge Forest Damage Due to Climate Crisis: Researchers Sound the Alarm

Losses from wildfires, storms, and bark beetles currently cost the forestry industry in Europe 115 billion euros, calculated Austrian forestry scientist Rupert Seidl with colleagues. If the climate crisis is not combated more effectively, they will rise to up to 247 billion euros in the period from 2076 to 2100. "The disturbances reduce the economic value of forestry by these figures and are a burden for forest owners in Europe," he told APA.

Climate crisis reduces value of forests

These loss values would show that wildfires, storms, and bark beetles could make wood production in Europe less profitable, and they reflected the disturbance-related loss of value, according to the researcher. In the study published in the journal "Nature Climate Change," the team led by Seidl (Technical University of Munich) analyzed the depreciation caused by various disturbances to Europe's forests in the period between 1981 and 2005. Based on these figures, one can also describe the current situation.

Subsequently, the team used model calculations to simulate how Europe's forests will grow under different climate conditions by the end of the 21st century and how fires, storms, and bark beetles will affect forest development and timber harvest, according to a release. The direct economic damages from these calamities will increase across Europe, said Seidl. However, they can partly be offset by the fact that trees grow faster due to higher temperatures, longer growth periods, and increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere - CO2 is the "main food" of plants.

Growth profits cannot offset damages

However, these gains are not distributed evenly across Europe: In Southern Europe, the damage costs significantly exceed the potential additional revenues. "Even in Central European countries like Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, the forest value will decrease so much with moderate global warming that any production increase can hardly offset the disturbance losses," the researchers explain: "The Scandinavian forests, on the other hand, are less frequently affected by disturbances and benefit the most from the climatic changes." There, the production increases could even exceed the damage costs.

(APA/Red)

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