Models

Over the last decades sustainable management aiming at the multiple use of natural resources has intensified, becoming a challenge to owners and managers. Management afects the way Human promotes changes with the aim of meeting multiple objectives. However, optimizing all forest or agroforest functions is impossible, since these compete for the same resources.

Growth and yield models can, and should, be useful tools to assess the impact of different management approaches on the evolution of ecosystems. Models can be classified under diferent perspectives:

• Empirical or process-based;
• Tree or stand level;
• Distance dependent or independent.

Over the years, enumerous models have been developed for the main tree species in portugal: maritime pine, eucalyptus and cork oak, and more recentely stone pine. Many of these models were developed within ForChange or in close colaboration with other Universities, Polithecnic institutes and forest sector companies.

In a global changes context, considering climate changes in particular, process-based models became important tools for assessing the impact of management practices as mitigation (reduction of greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (minimization of negative impacts)  measures.

Within this line of research ForChange has been working towards the calibration of process-based for the main forest tree species in Portugal with the purpose of studying and making available tools capable of assessing the evolution of forest or agroforet ecosystems under different scenarios of climate change and adaptive management.