ForeSight: Predicting and monitoring drought-linked forest growth decline across Europe

更严重的干旱和温度升高会降低树木的生长，并导致地球仪上的树木枯死和死亡。虽然这个问题已被认识了一段时间，但人们对森林生长减少和死亡的过程和地理范围还没有很好的了解。预测欧洲森林对干旱和气温变化的反应是一个关键挑战，因为森林具有巨大的经济和生态效益，随着气候变暖和变得更加极端，这些效益将受到影响。解决这一问题需要采取跨学科的方法，汇集森林生态学、地球观测、树木生态学和基于过程的建模方面的世界领先的专门知识。我们的团队拥有卓越的科学成就和方法开发记录，以及将科学进步转化为具有国际政策和经济影响的实际应用的专业知识。我们使用欧洲山毛榉作为研究这一问题的指示物种，因为它是欧洲最广泛的阔叶树，覆盖面积超过1500万公顷。山毛榉生产有价值的木材，用途非常广泛，众所周知，山毛榉面临与干旱有关的枯死和死亡的高风险。我们的研究是非常新颖的，因为它将把卫星观测和基于过程的模型联系起来，这些模型是从欧洲山毛榉树环网络校准的，该数据网络提供了25个国家约1万棵树的详细生长情况。这些数据将使我们能够模拟树木生长抑制的过程，并近实时地绘制和监测整个山毛榉范围内的干旱胁迫脆弱性。我们将进一步了解山毛榉对环境变化的反应，并根据欧洲各地的当地气候和土壤湿度建立预测树木生长的模型。模型和树木年轮数据将提供生长抑制和枯死风险的详细情况。此外，我们还将联合收割机与卫星数据相结合，建立一个开放源网络监测平台，作为森林管理人员和决策者决策支持的基础。这一项目非常及时，因为基于云的卫星图像计算机处理现在避免了下载和预处理大量卫星数据的需要。这种云处理使得这种规模的数据分析效率高，成本效益高，所有人都可以通过简单的基于Web的界面获得输出。我们将对森林因干旱而减少生长和死亡的问题提出新的科学见解，这将大大有助于提高我们对生态系统和大气层所受影响的认识。此外，我们将应用我们的研究，为森林管理的物种适宜性和生长预测提供业务指导。在英国，这将通过与森林研究合作来实现，以改善他们的山毛榉生态立地分类决策支持系统。该系统向所有人开放，并被林业工作者和政策顾问广泛使用。一旦适应使用我们的结果山毛榉，这些变化的决策支持工具可以扩展到其他森林形成树种，也将支持未来规划的半天然林地在英国。我们的项目产出将广泛受益于前沿研究森林决策支持。我们将绘制早期预警信号的增长下降和死亡率和干旱对整个欧洲山毛榉生长的影响。我们将预测未来气候变化对森林生长和死亡率的影响，改进森林碳吸收的估计，并提供工具，利用卫星数据监测这些影响。总的来说，我们的研究将大大提高我们对过去，现在和未来干旱对整个欧洲山毛榉林影响的理解，并提供监测和管理我们未来森林的能力。

More intense drought and increased temperatures reduce tree growth and drive tree die-back and mortality across the globe. While this problem has been recognized for some time, the processes and geographical extent of forest growth reduction and die-off are not well understood. Predicting the response of Europe's forests to drought and temperature change a key challenge because forests have enormous economic and ecological benefits that will be impacted as climate warms and becomes more extreme. Addressing this problem requires an interdisciplinary approach that brings together world-leading expertise in in forest ecology, Earth observation, dendroecology and process-based modelling. Our team has a strong record of scientific excellence and method development as well as expertise in transferring scientific advances into practical applications with international policy and economic impact.We use European beech as an indicator species to study this problem because it is the most widespread broadleaf tree in Europe covering over 15 million hectares. Beech produces valuable wood with very diverse uses and it is known to be at high risk from drought-linked die-back and mortality. Our research is highly novel because it will link together satellite observations and process-based models calibrated from the European Beech Tree Ring Network, a data network that provides a detailed picture of tree growth from about ten thousand individual trees across 25 countries. These data will enable us to model the processes of tree growth suppression and to map and monitor drought-stress vulnerability across the entire range of beech in near real-time. We will advance knowledge of the response of beech to environmental variation and produce models that predict tree growth based on local climate and soil moisture across Europe. The models and tree ring data will provide a detailed picture of growth suppression and dieback risk. Furthermore, we will combine the site-specific models with satellite data to establish an open-source web-based monitoring platform that will form the basis for decision support for forest managers and policy makers. This project is highly timely, since cloud-based computer processing of satellite imagery now avoids the need to download and pre-process large volumes of satellite data. Such cloud processing makes data analysis at this scale efficient and cost effective, with outputs available to all via a simple web-based interface. We will contribute major new scientific insights into forest growth reduction and die-off in response to drought, with substantial benefits for improving our understanding of impacts on our ecoststems and atmosphere. Furthermore, we will apply our research to provide operational guidance on species suitability and growth predictions for forest management. In the UK this will be achieved by working with Forest Research to improve their Ecological Site Classification Decision Support System for beech. The system is open to all and is widely used by foresters and policy advisers. Once adapted using our results for beech, these changes to decision support tools can be extended to other forest-forming tree species and will also underpin future planning of semi-natural woodland in the UK.Our project outputs will give broad benefit from cutting edge research to forest decision support. We will map early-warning signals of growth decline and mortality and impacts of drought on growth across the entire range of European beech. We will predict future impacts of climate change on forest growth and mortality, improve estimates of forest carbon uptake and provide the tools to monitor these effects using satellite data. Overall, our research will substantially advance our understanding of past, present and future drought impacts on beech forest across Europe and provide the capability to monitor and manage our forests for the future.