“The time for baby steps has passed”

Hohenwarter also views the forests as a particularly significant indicator of the state of our climate: “People have pushed monoculture in recent decades. As a fast-growing and economically profitable tree, the spruce now dominates our forested areas. The problem: it is difficult for the shallow rooted tree to withstand challenges such as drought, storms or heat. The extreme weather situations in past years have clearly shown this.” Then there are also the quantities of precipitation that are often unevenly distributed in the winter and strong rains in the summer that can no longer be discharged through the parched soils. The problem of drought and dwindling groundwater reservoirs could thus become a massive problem. “If we succeed in establishing more mixed cultivation in the future and by preventing deforestation also enabling a mixture of age structures, we can strengthen the expected diversity of the entire system in the long term.”. Hohenwarter sees this as the solution to the problem. Just this: if someone plants a tree today, they can only hope that it is happy in its surroundings in 30, 40 or 50 years, or until then.

However, the expert is sure: “There won't be a shortage of wood in our latitude fast.” With an eye on the coming ten years we can expect big changes to the current development. The reforestation is going well, and there is still more wood available than is actually needed. So that it stays that way, we have to think of tomorrow today. One example: even if the tree line is de facto rising, it isn’t purely for climatic reasons. Caused by mountain farming, the tree line is artificially created by the cultivation of the natural landscape as tree-fee pastures. “Regardless, our mountain landscape offers little potential for the expansion of the trees at higher elevations due to its topography”, says Hohenwarter. He sees one problem as the increase in persisting weather conditions: “Periods of heat, storms or rain increasingly beset us and thus lead to massive effects. Even snow breakage is an issue.”

Hohenwarter sees the growing pest infestation of the forests as an additional danger. With increasing temperatures, the limit is reaching higher elevations at which the bark beetle undergoes only one replication cycle per year. “The current weather developments open the gates to infestations by bark beetles. Due to the prevailing monoculture, the beetles are attacking healthy trees as well as dead wood. A giant problem”, observes Hohenwarter. However, the climatologist and passionate hiker looks into the future with optimism: “It's not too late. Combating climate change is still in our hands. However, the clock is ticking and actions must now replace words in all instances.”
 

ZAMG
The “Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik” (Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics) is the state meteorological and geophysical service of Austria. On the basis of its address in Vienna, it is also known as “The High Lookout”. In addition to the collection, processing and recording of the results of investigations related to the field and many additional services, the ZAMG also offers individual support of construction projects.