Projects and research

Protection Forests in the Alpine Region – Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change - Project MOSAIC

Climate change is undeniably contributing to the increase in weather- and climate-related natural disasters, affecting Alpine communities. Natural disasters are often the result of compound events, which are combinations of multiple climate- and/or weather-related hazards that contribute to societal or environmental risks.

Unit for Snow & Avalanches

A Novel EU Project Provides Forest Information for Europe’s Roadmap Towards Climate Neutrality - Project

A better monitoring of Europe’s forest will help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Department for Forest Inventory

NatWALD – Identification, selection, establishment & monitoring of new natural forest reserves - Project NatWALD

Natural forest reserves (NFR) have gained political and social importance due to current challenges related to climate change and the biodiversity crisis. The aim of the NatWALD project is to expand the existing network by setting up 15 new NFRs (approx. 500 ha) with a contract period of 20 years.

Unit for Natural Forest Reserves

Research group investigates the behaviour of forest fires - Project EMERGE

Forest fires have so far been a marginal topic in Austria, but in the future an increase in such events is expected. A group of researchers is currently investigating how the behaviour of fires in forests can be better assessed.

Unit for Remote Sensing

Man sieht durch den Sucher einer Kamera Waldarbeiter im Wald

Forestry training goes digital - Project 2ForT

Forestry is very much practice-oriented, so the digital paths in education are not yet very developed. The project 2ForT wants to change this circumstance.

A red-hot future for Austria’s forests - Project Austria Fire Futures

In the future, the risk of forest fire will be a permanent threat of summer in Austria as well. How we can better deal with it is being researched in the Austria Fire Futures project.

Unit for Remote Sensing

ALPTREES | Sustainable use and management of non native trees in the alpine region - Decision support system

The use of non-native tree species polarise the opinions of experts and citizens. Adaption to climate change versus invasiveness are factors to be considered in the future management of forests and urban tree populations.

Unit for Forest Biodiversity

AvaRange | Understanding the Flow Mobility of Avalanches - Cooperation for Researching Avalanches

In-flow data with high precision in real avalanche scenarios are the product of the cooperative project of BFW Institute for Natural Hazards Innsbruck, TU Berlin and University of Innsbruck. This approach is now being applied for the first time to snow avalanches. The destructive potential of gravitational mass flows, such as snow avalanches, has a […]

Unit for Snow & Avalanches

HybOakAdapt – Genomics of hybridization in white oaks for climate-adapted Austrian forests - Project

The project, funded by the Climate Energy Fund, investigates white oak species complexes as a model system and the role of hybridization in climate adaptation. A particular focus is on Austria and south-eastern Europe.

Unit for Ecological Genetics

Measuring Greenhouse Gases in Singapur - Inventory

With the SINSOIL project, the first baseline data on soil GHG emissions (CO2, N2O and CH4) from a natural forest land and an urban parkland in Singapur under commonly used management practices (grass vegetation, N fixing plants and compost application) over a 1 year period will be collected. Studies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in […]

Department for Forest Ecology & Soil

Buchenwald im Herbst, mit teils verfärbten Blättern

Climate change: How forest owners are being helped - ManageBeech Project

Global warming is forcing forest owners to adapt their forests to future climatic conditions. In the course of forest conversion, the future of the forest is to be secured with new tree species or combinations. But climate fitness is not the only goal: forests should be profitable, have a high level of biodiversity and also act as a greenhouse gas sink. How to reconcile all this is the focus of the two-year ACRP research project ManageBeech.