1.1 Site Assessment

Before any successful restoration can occur, it is essential for you to have a broad understanding of the current and past situation of the site. This includes management and land-cover changes, indirect degradation drivers like pollution or invasive species, and the site’s socio-economic values. These values may involve property rights, formal and informal land-use rights and traditions including those of native people. In addition, you should also consider broader societal demands on forests, which is further explained in chapter 1.5 Stakeholder and societal perception mapping. 

Another critical element you need to understand is the site’s intrinsic potential, also known as 'site capability.' This refers to the site's inherent characteristics that enable it to perform specific functions, such as supporting plant growth and providing ecosystem services. Site capability varies depending on factors such as local climate, topography, hydrological conditions, underlying geology, and soil type. Most of these factors are largely fixed and cannot be easily altered by management practices, yet they are crucial in determining forest composition and recovery.  

In addition to these fixed factors, the site’s history — such as previous land use, forest management activity, major events, and forest age, along with the current vegetation cover (including species presence, and whether plants are native or invasive) will define the boundary conditions for restoration. Understanding these boundary conditions will help you set realistic and achievable restoration goals. Informed decisions that align restoration objectives with the site’s capabilities represent the first step in the process. When planning restoration efforts, key questions to consider include: 

In addition to current climate, regionalized climate change projections will also be very useful to determine the restoration potential and challenges. You can find information on the local future climate from national and international climate models and atlases (https://atlas.climate.copernicus.eu/atlas). They are also included in models and tools used to support forest restoration, which are presented in other sections, e.g. section 3.3. 

Soil assessment of the site is another critical component. Mapping the soil’s potential requires a combination of tools and data sources. Soil potential can be assessed through maps showing underlying geology and soil types based on local or international classification systems. Soil maps are valuable resources for assessing soil texture (sand, silt, and clay percentages), water-holding capacity, nutrient retention, stoniness, compaction risk, acidification potential, drainage class, and internal drainage characteristics (e.g., groundwater table height during summer and winter). Comparing these soil types to relevant literature provides a useful first indication of a site’s suitability for different restoration efforts.