Forests in the Nordic and Baltic countries are central to climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and the bioeconomy. However, climate change is already altering forest growth, regeneration, and mortality, while societal demands are shifting towards more diverse and adaptive management practices, such as Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF). Most operational forest growth and yield models were developed under past climatic conditions and for conventional even‑aged forestry, making them increasingly unreliable. There is a critical knowledge gap in understanding the environmental drivers behind recent growth trends and in providing practical, climate‑sensitive models that are applicable across regions and management systems.
Our project aims to (1) explain recent changes in forest growth and damage across Nordic–Baltic bioclimatic zones, (2) develop cross‑regional, climate‑sensitive models for tree growth, recruitment, and mortality, and (3) make these tools directly usable by practitioners. The main outcome will be a new generation of forest growth models that work across countries, climates, and silvicultural systems, including CCF. Effectiveness is ensured by validation against long‑term experimental data and by implementing the models in an open, interactive web application that allows stakeholders to simulate management and climate scenarios in practice.
The research integrates National Forest Inventory data and Long‑Term Experiments from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, and Sweden, creating an unprecedented cross‑regional database. Dendroecological analyses are used to identify climatic drivers of growth and damage. These insights are incorporated into hybrid, climate‑sensitive growth and demographic models, combining empirical forestry modelling with physiologically derived variables. Advanced statistical methods, machine learning, and deep learning are tested alongside traditional models. Close cooperation among leading research institutes and direct engagement with forest managers, policy actors, and industry stakeholders ensure relevance and applicability.
Our project is unique in jointly addressing climate change and alternative forest management at a Nordic–Baltic scale, integrating extensive cross‑regional data, explicit climate sensitivity, and stakeholder co‑design. The resulting open‑access models and web tool will provide a practical, science‑based foundation for sustainable forest management under changing climatic conditions.
