MountEx

Concept

Spruce-dominated mountain forests in the Alps are increasingly threatened by bark-beetle outbreaks and other extreme disturbance events. This creates major challenges for their management and long-term protection against natural hazards such us avalanches and rockfall.

Project Description

The MountEx project aimed to support the prioritization of mountain forests under extreme disturbances. It identified vulnerable forests and those with potentially declining protection values against natural hazards. It also improved adaptation strategies and optimized operational planning in forest management. In close collaboration with practitioners, MountEx developed decision support and practical recommendations to set priorities for forest management.

Key Findings

  • Decision-making can only respond to climate-related extremes if planning tools integrate extreme-event scenarios, related risks, and economic factors.
  • Setting priorities in forest management is a trade-off between ecological and economical factors. How all the factors come together can be evaluated with the MountEx dashboard. 
  • An integration of different spatial scales from the landscape scale risk mapping to the development of stand-level management strategies and the enterprise-level planning is needed to take informed decisions. 
Excursion in the “Steinschlag Wald» of Davos with the MountEx team and its stakeholders.

Main products and outcomes

A main product of the MountEx project is the dashboard, with which we were able to synthesize spatial information of the four different parts: (1) Forest structure and site, (2) Action planning, (3) Timber harvest and (4) Natural disturbances and natural hazards. These parts combine a framework for visualizing the prioritization of management interventions. 

https://interactive-maps.wsl.ch/mountex/dashboard/en/

MountEx contributed to two Forum für Wissen conferences:

Ongoing and future projects

We are pleased that work on MountEx related topics will continue even after the finishing of the Extremes Program. We have several spin-off activities such as the production of predisposition maps for the Canton of Bern, a WSL internal project on improving coniferous tree species mixture maps in collaboration with Swiss cantons and the BIOFORMA project funded by SNF MAPS2 lined up.

Publications