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Research on Sustainable Forest Management in the Context of Climate Change

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Forestry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 1560

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andreja Đuka

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry, Institute of Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: wood harvesting systems; forest accessibility; life cycle analysis and environmental suitability of timber harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jelena Kolić

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry, Institute of Forest Inventory, Management Planning and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: visual interpretation of aerial imagery (colour, infra-colour) in stereomodel (3D) and imagery with unmanned aerial vehicles with a focus on identifying tree species and determining the health status of individual trees; measuring photo-interpretation (tree height measurement, measurement of the crown projection area, constitution, stumpage, etc.); land-use mapping; biotope of urban and wetland habitat mapping, etc.; the possibilities of LiDAR use in forestry, production of digital relief model (DMR); digital orthophoto (DOF) for environmental modelling (raster-GIS analysis, spatial-temporal analysis, geostatistics)
Dr. Mario Ančić

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry, Institute of Forest Inventory, Management Planning and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: cartography/mapping in forestry; remote sensing (RGB; multispectral; hyperspectral; LiDAR; GPS) in forestry; the possibilities of UAV applications in forestry; GIS analysis in forestry

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, many topics have been related to climate change, the consequences of which are manifested in increasingly frequent natural disasters, such as ice breaks, windbreaks, floods, and fires. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events leave a negative impacts on forest ecosystems.

Forests and forest lands are essential natural resources responsible for favourable living conditions: clean air, clean and fertile soil, clean water and a favourable climate. The role of forests and forestry in creating and preserving favourable living conditions for humans and the entire biological diversity has never been as crucial as it is today, as they can significantly contribute to mitigating climate change.

For this reason, the current and future activities of the forestry profession and science will be increasingly focused on understanding the consequences of climate change and adaptation to forest management, and this requires the engagement of all components within the forestry sector (silviculture and ecology, forest protection and wildlife management, forest operations, forest inventory, modelling and remote sensing to forest genetics and dendrology and wood technology).

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) cross-disciplinary areas of forestry and wood technology, highlighting sustainability, innovation and the latest research in the following:

  • Forest operations (harvesting, biomass, road network planning, ergonomics and work safety, training and certification, supply chains, environmentally friendly forest operations, life cycle assessment, machine design and mechanisation).
  • Forest inventory and management (remote sensing, modelling and digitalisation, sensors, dynamics of sustainable management, management of small private forests, etc.).
  • Forest ecology (silviculture, phytocoenology, paedology and forest karst melioration with nature protection, etc.).
  • Forest protection (forest fires, wildlife management, zoology, entomology, phytopathology, etc.).
  • Forest genetics and dendrology (quantitative and population genetics, conservation of genetic resources, stress physiology, dendrology, etc.).
  • Wood technology (sustainable wood products, life cycle assessment, bioeconomy, etc.).

We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Andreja Đuka
Dr. Jelena Kolić
Dr. Mario Ančić
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest operations
  • remote sensing
  • silviculture
  • forest fires
  • phytopathology
  • entomology
  • stress physiology
  • dendrology
  • paedology
  • phytocoenology
  • wood technology
  • bioeconomy

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1639 KiB  
Article
Improving the Sustainability of Pollarding in Multifunctional Agro-Forestry Plantations
by Natascia Magagnotti, Giustino Mezzalira and Raffaele Spinelli
Sustainability 2025, 17(7), 3164; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17073164 - 2 Apr 2025
Viewed by 211
Abstract
Pollarding is an ancient agroforestry practice that greatly contributes to the sustainability of farming but is slowly becoming extinct because traditional pollards are not viable from a financial and social viewpoint. In particular, the cutting of pollards is too slow, expensive and dangerous [...] Read more.
Pollarding is an ancient agroforestry practice that greatly contributes to the sustainability of farming but is slowly becoming extinct because traditional pollards are not viable from a financial and social viewpoint. In particular, the cutting of pollards is too slow, expensive and dangerous for modern farmers to apply. This study presents the first test of mechanized pollarding, performed with two different devices: a set of shears and a disc saw. Both devices were fitted to the boom tip of a tracked excavator and were tested on poplar rows in a typical alley-cropping system. The introduction of those simple devices restored productivity and safety to pollarding as a modern practice. Tree topping incurred a cost around 1 € tree−1, or 250–350 € ha−1. This cost would need to be balanced against the revenue obtained from the treetops sold as biomass and the increased yields of the alley crop, prolonged for several years. Mechanization also allows cutting the treetops several metres above ground level, so that the trunks of the pollarded trees may yield valuable timber when they are eventually harvested. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Forest Management in the Context of Climate Change)
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20 pages, 2381 KiB  
Article
Impact of Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda L.) Plantation Management on Biomass, Carbon Sequestration Rates and Storage
by Farzam Tavankar, Rodolfo Picchio, Mehrdad Nikooy, Behroz Karamdost Marian, Rachele Venanzi and Angela Lo Monaco
Sustainability 2025, 17(3), 888; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17030888 - 22 Jan 2025
Viewed by 942
Abstract
Loblolly pine plantations have long been cultivated primarily for timber production due to their rapid growth and economic value. However, these forests are now increasingly acknowledged for their important role in mitigating climate change. Their dense canopies and fast growth rates enable them [...] Read more.
Loblolly pine plantations have long been cultivated primarily for timber production due to their rapid growth and economic value. However, these forests are now increasingly acknowledged for their important role in mitigating climate change. Their dense canopies and fast growth rates enable them to absorb and store substantial amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. By integrating sustainable management practices, these plantations can maximize both timber yield and carbon sequestration, contributing to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Balancing timber production with vital ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, demands carefully tailored management strategies. This study examined how the timing of thinning—specifically early thinning at 17 years and late thinning at 32 years—impacts biomass accumulation, carbon storage capacity, and carbon sequestration rates in loblolly pine plantations located in northern Iran. Two thinning intensities were evaluated: normal thinning (removal of 15% basal area) and heavy thinning (removal of 35% basal area). The results demonstrated that thinning significantly improved biomass, sequestration rates and carbon storage compared to unthinned stands. Early thinning proved more effective than late thinning in enhancing these metrics. Additionally, heavy thinning had a greater impact than normal thinning on increasing biomass, carbon storage, and sequestration rates. In early heavy-thinned stands, carbon storage reached 95.8 Mg C/ha, which was 63.0% higher than the 58.8 Mg C/ha observed in unthinned 32-year-old stands. In comparison, early normal thinning increased carbon storage by 41.3%. In late heavy-thinned stands, carbon storage reached 199.4 Mg C/ha, which was 29.0% higher than in unthinned stands of the same age (154.6 Mg C/ha at 52 years). In contrast, late normal thinning increased carbon storage by 13.3%. Similarly, carbon sequestration rates in unthinned stands were 1.84 Mg C/ha/yr at 32 years and 2.97 Mg C/ha/yr at 52 years. In comparison, 32-year-old stands subjected to normal and heavy thinning had sequestration rates of 2.60 and 2.99 Mg C/ha/yr, respectively, while 54-year-old normally and heavily thinned stands reached 3.37 and 3.83 Mg C/ha/yr, respectively. The highest carbon storage was concentrated in the stems for 52–58% of the total. Greater thinning intensity increased the proportion of carbon stored in stems while decreasing the contribution from foliage. These results indicate that heavy early thinning is the most effective strategy for maximizing both timber production and carbon sequestration in loblolly pine plantations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Forest Management in the Context of Climate Change)
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