Projected ecosystem data - Croatia

Forest restoration initiatives are becoming widespread in many European countries. Within these initiatives, attempts are being made to restore various forest habitat types and a wide range of areas with different socioeconomic and ecological backgrounds. Forest restoration goals in Europe may not always align with those of historical reference forests, as climate change increasingly makes such restoration unfeasible. As a result, objectives are often redirected toward managed forest states that support the continual provision of desired goods and ecosystem services. Therefore, the most likely trajectories of future forest development are needed to assess and evaluate restoration outcomes, as well as advise on successful measures which could support upscaling of the restoration initiatives. This Croatian side of the cross-border demo projection report is part of the deliverable D6.5 on projected ecosystem data. The forest development under varying restoration scenarios is projected for the upcoming 30 years, till 2055 using the EFISCEN-Space model. The model projections showed that (1) replacement of Populus plantations does not have immediate positive effects on the development of the forest resources e.g. growing stock volume, increment and structural diversity, (2) diversification of Quercus sp. dominated forests but underplanting measures has overall positive effect on the structural forest complexity and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, (3) development of forests under all three scenarios becomes stable from 2045 onwards which means that to maintain further development of resources and structural diversity, forest management needs to consider both cuttings and underplanting which could regulate and sustain the resources in the long-term, (4) the 92 800 hectare of forest restoration area may cost around 464 million Euro (at average hectare costs of 5 000 Euro; see Croatia-Serbia cross-border workplan v2.0).
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