BioClimSol

BioClimSol contrinutes to the efforts dedicated to French forests adaptation to climate change. The ongoing monitoring of forest decline and mortality, which is regularly documented, highlights trends that have been worrying forest managers in recent years.

BioClimSol is a silvo-climatic tool that offers expertise on the risks of forest dieback and ecological incompatibility It takes into account site potential and constraints across the entire French territory, while considering the most likely climate change scenarios. The diagnostic approach leads to management recommendations that guide the choice of tree species and the adaptation of forestry practices to manage forest stands and explore renewal solutions (planting, replanting, natural regeneration).

BioClimSol is a diagnostic and decision-making tool primarily aimed at forest managers. Its different formats and interfaces reflect the scientific expertise it provides for various uses, including:

• A mobile app for forest managers, for data collection and transferring expertise at the plot level.
• Data and expert cartographic products (GIS formats) for decision-makers, supporting territorial management strategies.

Dieback Models

For about 15 tree species, the tool offers dieback risk models based on extensive field studies. These models help identify and weight the factors contributing to the dieback phenomenon. These factors include biotic, climatic, topographic, and sylvicultural influences.

Niche Models

For 34 other species, BioClimSol offers niche models based on the thresholds of 7 climate parameters that define their global distribution. The species' ecological requirements, gathered from literature and expert surveys, are characterized by 6 topographic and edaphic parameters. These models then provide an assessment of ecological incompatibility risk.

Potential future developments

The tool was designed with a collaborative approach, transforming each user into a potential “sentinel,” strengthening the models with every observation for the benefit of the entire user community. The community currently has 900 licenses and is growing by approximately 40% each year. This allows for nearly 15,000 field diagnostics to be carried out, a number that is constantly increasing (approximately 2,000 to 3,000 diagnostics per year).

But even though the tool already provides better insight into dieback risks, many other aspects of the risks facing forests remain. BioClimSol’s scalable and modular design allows for the integration of all these other risk dimensions to support even more effective adaptive management strategies.

That is why BioClimSol is part of a continuous service strategy supporting the development and enhancement plan put in place by the CNPF.

Current contribution

BioClimSol models use a wide range of climate variables derived from the most advanced climate models in France. Among these, temperature, precipitation, and water balance are particularly important. Additional variables, such as recurrence and deviations from normal climate patterns, are also included to reflect the impact of sudden climatic changes on forest decline. To provide an understanding of risks under the most likely climate change scenarios, the tool incorporates various projections of future climates, based on temperature rise scenarios.

Other field-based variables are also used in decline models, with strict protocols in place. The skills required in each discipline involved are key elements of the certification and training programs that regulate access to the tool.

BioClimSol enables a deep understanding of the dieback risk to make informed decisions in the changing and uncertain context of climate change. This expertise is becoming more accessible to forest managers who wonder about their plots, or to decision-makers working towards strategic objectives.

Different decision keys use BioClimSol data to guide forest managers in their management recommendations. These keys are based on four criteria:

• The state of health of the stand at the time of the assessment. This helps determine the urgency and intensity of harvesting interventions. Taking resilience phenomena into account often provides valuable leeway to avoid systematic clearcutting.
• The proximity of the stand’s harvestability threshold, which influences the advisability of maintaining the stand in production if its state of health permits and/or if resilience is demonstrated.
• The risk of dieback, which guides the role of species present in the stand in the short and medium term.