Increasing forest resilience and resistance to prevent and mitigate natural and anthropogenic disturbance impact in a global change context

Natural disturbances play a fundamental role in many forest ecosystems. Altered disturbance regimes resulting from climate and land use changes call for increased understanding of forest stand response to disturbance to guide forest management, both in the prevention and post-event phases.

In the field of disturbance/hazard ecology and management, we conduct research on the following topics:

• analysis of natural disturbance regimes and their ecological role in the Alps, Apennines, Mediterranean and the Balkan Peninsula
• forest fuel management, silvicultural prevention activities, also through experimental prescribed burning
• wildfire risk assessment and mitigation at different spatial scales
• protection forest management, with specific studies on rockfall, also through simulation models
• monitoring and analysis of post-disturbance regeneration dynamics
• assessment of the ecological impact and the efficacy of post-disturbance management
• climate change impact on disturbance regimes and forests
• restoration of areas affected by high severity natural and anthropogenic disturbances, through experimental plantations adopting innovative techniques to reduce mortality and costs.

The research group collaborates with numerous public agencies and private bodies for the dissemination of our applied research, providing support and guidelines for the recovery of areas affected by disturbances.

• MOSAIC - Managing prOtective foreSts fAcIng clImate Change compound events (ASP0100014) UE Interreg Alpine Space 2022-2025
  
• “Strumenti per la valutazione del rischio di degradazione del suolo e la gestione dei boschi piemontesi percorsi da incendio”. Finanziamento Fondazione CRT
• Restoring vegetation through direct seeding or planting: A continental-scale experiment. Project coordinated by the University of Granada (Spain)
• Supporto tecnico scientifico specialistico in tema ambientale e attività tecnico-operative finalizzate alla realizzazione dei progetti PNRR2022_TO01 (“Ripristino boschi percorsi dal fuoco nei comuni della Bassa Valle di Susa”), PNRR2022_TO02 (“Rimboschimento nel Parco La Mandria e Sito Stellantis - ex piste prova La Mandria”), PNRR2022_TO03 (“Forestazione di aree perifluviali nel territorio del Parco naturale del Po piemontese”), nell’ambito del “Piano di forestazione urbana ed extraurbana”, relativo all’investimento 3.1 “Tutela e valorizzazione del verde urbano ed extraurbano”, parte della Linea di intervento 3 “Salvaguardare la qualità dell’aria e la biodiversità del territorio attraverso la tutela delle aree verdi, del suolo e delle aree marine”, nella componente 4 “Tutela del territorio e della risorsa idrica” della Missione 2 “Rivoluzione Verde e Transizione ecologica” del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza. Convenzione Città Metropolitana di Torino. 2023-2026
• SylvaForRes – Interreg - Closer to Nature Sylviculture ofr a Resilient Forest - 2023-2026
• FIRE-ADAPT – Horizon-MSCA-2021SE-01 - Integrated fire management under novel fire regimes - 2023 . 2026
• REWILDFIRE – Prin MIUR - Tradeoffs between rewilding and wildfire mitigation strategies - 2023-2025
• Life GoProForMed - Integrating wildfire prevention and biodiversity conservation in Natura 2000 Network - 2022-2026
• FIRE-BOX – Prin MIUR-PNRR - Essential tools for wildland fire risk management in Italy - 2023-2025
• PREFEU - Forest fire prevention for wood supply chains, PSR 2014-2020
• WILDCARD - Effects of rewilding in forest and agricultural lands on carbon sequestration and diversity - HORIZON-CL5-2022-D1-02-05

• Ascoli D., Hacket‐Pain A., LaMontagne J.M., Cardil A., Conedera M., Maringer J., Motta R., Pearse J., Vacchiano G. (2020). Climate teleconnections synchronize Picea glauca masting and fire disturbance: Evidence for a fire‐related form of environmental prediction. Journal of Ecology 108(3): 1186-1198
• Ascoli D., Moris J.V., Marco M., & Lorenzo S. (2021). Land use change towards forests and wooded land correlates with large and frequent wildfires in Italy. Annals of sylvicultural research 46(2): 177-188.
• Ascoli D., Plana E., Oggioni S., Tomao A., Colonico M., Corona P., ... Barbati A., (2023). Fire-smart solutions for sustainable wildfire risk prevention: Bottom-up initiatives meet top-down policies under EU green deal. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 92: 103715
• Aszalós, R., Thom, D., Aakala, T., Angelstam, P., Brūmelis, G., Gálhidy, L., Gratzer, G., Hlásny, T., Katzensteiner, K., Kovács, B., Knoke, T., Larrieu, L., Motta, R., Müller, J., Ódor, P., Roženbergar, D., Paillet, Y., Pitar, D., Standovár, T., Svoboda, M., Szwagrzyk, J., Toscani, P., Keeton, W.S., 2022. Natural disturbance regimes as a guide for sustainable forest management in Europe. Ecological Applications 32, e2596.
• Lázaro-González A, Andivia E, Hampe A, Hasegawa S, Marzano R, Santos AMC, Castro J, Leverkus AB, 2023. Revegetation through seeding or planting: A worldwide systematic map. Journal of Environmental Management, 337, 117713.

WSL - Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (Svizzera)
INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l’environnement (Francia)
CITAB-UTAD - University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (Portogallo)
Department of Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Granada (Spagna)
Dept. Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg (Germania)
UACH – Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia (Cile)