Feb 2011 - Feb 2015

ForEAdapt
Knowledge exchange between Europe and America on forest growth models and optimisation for adaptive forestry

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Portugal UTL-ISA

Sweden SLU

Finland UEF

Spain UPM

Chile DII PUC

Brasil ESALQ

USA PSU-SFR VT

INTRANET

Participant 2: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

• Main Tasks: Staff exchange, research and networking
• Address: P.O. Box 7070, SE-750 07 Uppsala. SWEDEN
• Website: www.slu.se

General Information

SLU is a leading university in the area of life science, and it has a strong and solid basis of research. Close to 70 per cent of the university’s turnover is dedicated to research and postgraduate education. One third of all biological research in Sweden is conducted at SLU. The Swedish government has given SLU responsibility for environmental monitoring and assessment. The Faculty of forest science is responsible of research implementation areas such as forest management and silviculture, forest biotechnology, forest ecology and forest economy. The Department of Forest Resource Management within the faculty of forest sciences carries out research and post-graduate education within the fields of forest management planning, remote sensing, forest technology, forest inventory and environmental monitoring. It has held the responsibility for coordinating the work on the new Swedish forest DSS, Heureka, which was launched in 2009.

Main research areas

The department of Forest Resource Management holds key competences in the area of forest management, especially relating to the development of methodologies for long range planning and the development of decision support tools within that area. Of special significance is the development of optimisation methods for long range planning of forest landscapes involving spatial aspect, participatory process and integration of such methods into forest DSS. The department is expertise in formulating and solving spatial problems for forest landscapes in long term planning. Especially attention has been paid to the use of exact optimisation method, as compared to heuristics. The Department of Forest Resource Management has extensive experience in the development and use of forest DSS. Over the last 10 years a multi disciplinary project has developed a new generation of DSS for Swedish forestry (the old system was also developed at SLU and was just on about half the forest area of Sweden for long range planning).

Key Persons

Dr Ljusk Ola Eriksson, professor of forest management planning, optimisation methods at stand and forest level; Dr. Tomas Lämås principles and methods for sustainable forest management and linking forest data to planning process; Dr. Karin Öhman spatial optimisation and participatory planning; Dr. Peder Wikström optimisation methods and implementation of models into DSS; Dr. Erik Wilhelmsson forest owner objectives. Late stag PhD students in, specifically, participatory planning, multiple objectives and spatial modelling and information and planning theory.

International collaboration

SLU´s participation in EU´s research programmes is extensive. The Department of Forest Resource Management is involved on the COST Action FORSYS which is a networking project that brings developer and users of forest decision support systems (DSSs) together (Prof. Eriksson as chair). It is also involved in a project funded by the EU Life, the FutMon project (Further Development and Implementation of an EU-level Forest Monitoring System) which aims at the creation of a pan-European forest monitoring system which can serve as a basis for the provision of policy relevant information on forests in the European Union as required under international obligations and key action 8 of the Forest Action Plan.