Silviculture

The subject area silviculture covers research on short- and long-term effects of silvicultural systems, forest operations and strategies on set targets for forest management, with a focus on northern temperate, boreal and tropical forests.

One important set target is growth and yield and thus the provision of wood but other ecosystem services like climate mitigation (carbon sequestration) and impacts on biodiversity (tree species diversity and amount of dead wood) are also important.

The research is based on

• long-term field experiments (many of them managed by the Unit for field-based forest research)
• survey studies
• laboratory experiments
• simulations

Research and Education

Typical research and education activities concern both deeper biogeophysical process understanding, as well as the development of sustainable forest management. Our silvicultural research in tropical areas spans a broad range of tropical ecosystems, from natural forests, and planted forests to agroforestry.

Examples of research questions are:

• How can rainforests be used in a sustainable way?
• Can trees improve water supply in semi-arid areas?

Our students are from both Sweden and from tropical countries.