Forzieri, Giovanni and Pecchi, Matteo and Girardello, Marco and Mauri, Achille and Klaus, Marcus and Nikolov, Christo and Rüetschi, Marius and Gardiner, Barry and Tomastik, Julian and Small, David and Nistor, Constantin and Jonikavicius, Donatas and Spinoni, Jonathan and Feyen, Luc and Giannetti, Francesca and Comino, Rinaldo and Wolynski, Alessandro and Pirotti, Francesco and Maistrelli, Fabio and Savulescu, Ionut and Wurpillot-Lucas, Stéphanie and Karlsson, Stefan and Zieba-Kulawik, Karolina and Strejczek-Jazwinska, Paulina and Mokros, Martin and Franz, Stefan and Krejci, Lukas and Haidu, Ionel and Nilsson, Mats and Wezyk, Piotr and Catani, Filippo and Chen, Yi-Ying and Luyssaert, Sebastiaan and Chirici, Gherardo and Cescatti, Alessandro and Beck, Pieter
(2020).
A spatially explicit database of wind disturbances in European forests over the period 2000-2018.
Earth System Science Data. 12
, 257-276
[Research article]
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Abstract
Strong winds may uproot and break trees and represent a major natural disturbance for European forests. Wind disturbances have intensified over the last decades globally and are expected to further rise in view of the effects of climate change. Despite the importance of such natural disturbances, there are currently no spatially explicit databases of wind-related impact at a pan-European scale. Here, we present a new database of wind disturbances in European forests (FORWIND). FORWIND is comprised of more than 80 000 spatially delineated areas in Europe that were disturbed by wind in the period 2000-2018 and describes them in a harmonized and consistent geographical vector format. The database includes all major windstorms that occurred over the observational period (e.g. Gudrun, Kyrill, Klaus, Xynthia and Vaia) and represents approximately 30% of the reported damaging wind events in Europe. Correlation analyses between the areas in FORWIND and land cover changes retrieved from the Landsat-based Global Forest Change dataset and the MODIS Global Disturbance Index corroborate the robustness of FORWIND. Spearman rank coefficients range between 0.27 and 0.48 (p value < 0.05). When recorded forest areas are rescaled based on their damage degree, correlation increases to 0.54. Wind-damaged growing stock volumes reported in national inventories (FORESTORM dataset) are generally higher than analogous metrics provided by FORWIND in combination with satellite-based biomass and country-scale statistics of growing stock volume. The potential of FORWIND is explored for a range of challenging topics and scientific fields, including scaling relations of wind damage, forest vulnerability modelling, remote sensing monitoring of forest disturbance, representation of uprooting and breakage of trees in large-scale land surface models, and hydrogeological risks following wind damage. Overall, FORWIND represents an essential and open-access spatial source that can be used to improve the understanding, detection and prediction of wind disturbances and the consequent impacts on forest ecosystems and the land-atmosphere system. Data sharing is encouraged in order to continuously update and improve FORWIND.
Authors/Creators: | Forzieri, Giovanni and Pecchi, Matteo and Girardello, Marco and Mauri, Achille and Klaus, Marcus and Nikolov, Christo and Rüetschi, Marius and Gardiner, Barry and Tomastik, Julian and Small, David and Nistor, Constantin and Jonikavicius, Donatas and Spinoni, Jonathan and Feyen, Luc and Giannetti, Francesca and Comino, Rinaldo and Wolynski, Alessandro and Pirotti, Francesco and Maistrelli, Fabio and Savulescu, Ionut and Wurpillot-Lucas, Stéphanie and Karlsson, Stefan and Zieba-Kulawik, Karolina and Strejczek-Jazwinska, Paulina and Mokros, Martin and Franz, Stefan and Krejci, Lukas and Haidu, Ionel and Nilsson, Mats and Wezyk, Piotr and Catani, Filippo and Chen, Yi-Ying and Luyssaert, Sebastiaan and Chirici, Gherardo and Cescatti, Alessandro and Beck, Pieter | ||||||
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Title: | A spatially explicit database of wind disturbances in European forests over the period 2000-2018 | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Earth System Science Data | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2020 | ||||||
Volume: | 12 | ||||||
Page range: | 257-276 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 20 | ||||||
Publisher: | COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH | ||||||
ISSN: | 1866-3508 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 105 Earth and Related Environmental Sciences > Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 4 Agricultural Sciences > 401 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries > Forest Science | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-104788 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-104788 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 21207 | ||||||
Faculty: | S - Faculty of Forest Sciences | ||||||
Department: | (S) > Dept. of Forest Ecology and Management (S) > Dept. of Forest Resource Management (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Forest Resource Management | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 13 Jan 2021 07:23 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2021 19:21 |
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