%0 Research article
%T The sensitivity of central European mountain forests to scenarios of climatic change: methodological frame for a large-scale risk assessment
%A Lexer, Manfred J.
%A Hönninger, Karl
%A Scheifinger, Helfried
%A Matulla, Christoph
%A Groll, Nikolaus
%A Kromp-Kolb, Helga
%D 2000
%J Silva Fennica
%V 34
%N 2
%R doi:10.14214/sf.635
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/635
%X The methodological framework of a large-scale risk assessment for  Austrian forests under scenarios of climatic change is presented. A  recently developed 3D-patch model is initialized with ground-true soil  and vegetation data from sample plots of the Austrian Forest Inventory  (AFI). Temperature and precipitation data of the current climate are  interpolated from a network of more than 600 weather stations to the  sample plots of the AFI. Vegetation development is simulated under  current climate (‘control run’) and under climate change scenarios  starting from today's forest composition and structure. Similarity of  species composition and accumulated biomass between these two runs at  various points in time were used as assessment criteria. An additive  preference function which is based on Saaty’s AHP is employed to  synthesize these criteria to an overall index of the adaptation  potential of current forests to a changing climate. The presented  methodology is demonstrated for a small sample from the Austrian Forest  Inventory. The forest model successfully simulated equilibrium species  composition under current climatic conditions spatially explicit in a  heterogenous landscape based on ground-true data. At none of the  simulated sites an abrupt forest dieback did occur due to climate change  impacts. However, substantial changes occured with regard to species  composition of the potential natural vegetation (PNV).