FORECOMON 2022 - The 10th Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Conference

Forest dynamics in the Anthropocene – Integrated monitoring toward a whole system approach

Postponed to 2023!

_{Due to the political situation in Europe determined by the Russian attack to Ukraine, we are no longer able to host the anticipated meetings with LUKE in Finland. We are aware that this may cause several inconveniences on your side, for which we apologize.}

_{The 10th Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Conference, FORECOMON 2022, will be postponed to 2023.}

_{The ICP Forests Chair, Programme Co-ordinating Centre, and ICP Forests Scientific Committee would like to express their deepest gratitude to the local organizers Päivi Merilä and Liisa Ukonmaanaho, as well as to all LUKE colleagues involved, for their work in preparing the meeting. We hope to benefit from this great effort and continue our fruitful and constructive cooperation next year, for FORECOMON 2023.}

Forest ecosystems play a key role in the ongoing global change as they possess a great proportion of terrestrial carbon and biodiversity. Their response to the large-scale environmental changes of our time such as anthropogenic air pollution, rising air temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and increasing occurrence of weather extremes (drought, heat, floods, storms etc.) have crucial implications for terrestrial flora, fauna and human societies.

Forests are growing in local, national, and global importance for ecosystem services such as timber production, water purification, carbon sequestration and soil erosion control. Although societal expectations of forest and forestry are expanding, the provision of these key ecosystem services is becoming more and more endangered. To assess the impact of global change on forest ecosystems and their resilience, long-term data series are indispensable to evaluate the status, new phenomena, trends and processes in forest ecosystems. These data series are the foundation for scientifically sound decision making. Consequently, the need for target-oriented cooperation within and between international monitoring networks is clear.

More than three decades of monitoring effects of air pollution within ICP Forests operating under the UNECE Air Convention have furnished a harmonized and standardized asset: long-term data series. These allow scientists, stakeholders and policy makers to assess the status, investigate the processes and forecast changes of European forest ecosystems and their functioning in a dynamic environment.

In the light of the scope of this conference, we particularly welcome contributions from long term monitoring networks, such as sister networks under the UNECE Working Group on Effects, ICOS, eLTER, DANUBIUS, ACTRIS, and AnaEE. We aim for a balanced program comprising traditional evaluations as well as the latest approaches using remote sensing techniques. Our goal is to stimulate an inspiring discussion on future monitoring, integrating information from the range of monitoring networks with a whole system approach.

As an enrichment of the scientific scope of the conference, we are delighted to announce the following keynotes:

Annemarie Bastrup-Birk (Forest Expert, European Environment Agency): Synergies and challenges among long-term forest monitoring networks
Jaana Bäck (Professor, University of Helsinki): Integrated approach to long-term observations in ecosystems, critical zone and socio-ecology (eLTER)
Arthur Gessler (Professor, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL): New approaches for monitoring forest functioning - crossing scales from the cellular metabolome to the stand wide photochemical reflectance index
Raisa Mäkipää (Professor, Natural Resources Institute Finland Luke): European forest soils in mitigation of climate change – which management practices can increase soil C stock or reduce emissions?