Wind is the main abiotic cause of disturbance to forests in large parts of the world, particularly at temperate and boreal latitudes. In the past few decades the consequences of large wind-induced losses have been experienced at various levels, from small forest owners to large-scale, whole-society level. This is particularly relevant for areas, such as Europe, where forests are intensively managed, and the assets exposed to wind hazard are substantial. To better manage forests and commercial tree plantations to reduce the risk of wind damage, process-based, semi-mechanistic mathematical models such as ForestGALES are used. This model has been parameterised and evaluated for numerous conifer species, which constitute the major plantation types in temperate and boreal biomes. However, the geographical extent and economic importance of fast-growing broadleaved species, such as those of the Eucalyptus genus, and the lack of detailed historical data on wind damage to these species, require that tools for the estimation of the risk of wind damage to these species are developed and evaluated. This is particularly relevant in light of the projected increases of surface temperature due to climate change, and of the frequency and severity of extreme windstorms, that are expected as a consequence of climate change. Fieldwork was conducted in a semi-natural Eucalyptus globulus (Labill.) forest in the Asturias region in Northern Spain to acquire data for the parameterisation of ForestGALES for E. globulus, using a tree-pulling experiment. The behaviour of the parameterisation was investigated for different stocking densities to evaluate whether the effects of tree height, stocking density, and presence of a fresh upwind gap are consistent with the literature. This parameterisation was then used to compare the vulnerability to wind damage between E. globulus and Pinus pinaster (Ait.), the predominant plantation species in the Aquitaine region of SW France where extensive damage was experienced from storms Martin (1999) and Klaus (2009). The effects of rooting depth (2x), growth rate (2x), presence/absence of a recently created windward gap, and of the predominant wind climate in Aquitaine were investigated in this comparison. In order to aid forest managers with optimal resource allocation for practical applications of ForestGALES, and to provide forest modellers with invaluable insights for the development of robust wind damage risk models, ForestGALES was subjected to a sensitivity analysis. A generalisation of the variance-based method of Sobol’ for the case of correlated variables was used to investigate the sensitivity of the outputs of ForestGALES (the critical wind speeds for stem breakage and uprooting, and the associated probabilities of damage) to variation in its input variables. Almost all the E. globulus trees pulled in Asturias failed by overturning rather than breakage, which allowed for good confidence in the calculations of the overturning moments required for the empirical component of ForestGALES. Resistance to overturning was not significantly influenced by the presence of a tap-root. Modelling the shape of the tree crowns with an ellipsoid provided a good approximation of the geometry of the canopy, but required additional fieldwork as crown width in the four cardinal directions had to be estimated visually prior to the tests. The scarcity of detailed published data on wind damage to E. globulus made evaluating the parameterisation particularly challenging. This impediment was obviated by investigating the behaviour of the parameterisation with regards to the well-known effects of tree height, stocking density, and presence of a fresh upwind gap. The simulations showed that the parameterisation behaved as expected, with vulnerability of E. globulus stands increasing with tree height, stocking density, and the presence of a gap. High initial planting densities, an early thinning, and a final harvesting before the trees have reached a height of 20 – 25m are recommended to reduce the risk of wind damage to E. globulus. The comparison with P. pinaster showed that E. globulus trees are particularly susceptible to the presence of a recently created windward gap. Therefore, harvesting at neighbouring sites should be minimised, and preferentially performed when the neighbouring stands are still at a young age to take advantage of the fast growth rates of E. globulus. These practices would ensure that in case of wind damage any losses are recovered in a short time. These procedures can reduce the cumulative risk through the rotation, while maintaining competitive yields. The ForestGALES simulations have also highlighted that the silvicultural practices currently in place in Aquitaine expose P. pinaster trees to high levels of cumulative risk (> 20%). The sensitivity analysis of ForestGALES has highlighted the strengths of the model and the areas that require substantial improvement. The results of the analysis show that ForestGALES is able to simulate very effectively the dynamics of wind damage to forest stands, as the model architecture reflects the significant influences of tree height, stocking density, dbh, and size of an upwind gap, on the calculations of the critical wind speeds of damage. Similarly, in ForestGALES the wind climate of a site is the main driver of variation of the probabilities of damage, as it is for real forests affected by extreme storms. Conversely, when the windiness of a site is moderate, ForestGALES accounts for the larger role of tree and stand variables. The sensitivity analysis has shown that ForestGALES is particularly efficient at simulating not only the effect of the size of windward gaps on the vulnerability of a stand, but also at differentiating between recently formed stand edges and edges that have been in place since the establishment of a stand. Therefore, for practical applications of the model, tree height, dbh, stocking density, the size and nature of an upwind gap, and the local wind climate, are the variables that need to be known with a high accuracy in order to maximally reduce the uncertainty of the model predictions. The section of the model that requires further attention and research is the one dedicated to the calculation of the trees’ resistance to overturning. The sensitivity analysis has shown that rooting depth and soil type, the model input variables on which the empirical component of ForestGALES that describes the resistance to overturning is based, contribute only marginally to the variation in the outputs. This finding unequivocally identifies that efforts for future research should be aimed at studying the mechanics of root-soil interactions with regards to tree stability. The results of the sensitivity analysis have also shown that the variance-based method used in this research project is equally sensitive to the accurate description of the probability distribution functions of the scrutinised variables, as it is to their correlation structure.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:705370 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Locatelli, Tommaso |
| Contributors | Metzger, Marc ; Williams, Mathew |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20386 |
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