European Union Cohesion Policy programme 2021–2027, European Regional Development Fund Specific Aid Objective 1.1.1 "Developing and enhancing research and innovation capacities and the uptake of advanced technologies" Measure 1.1.1.3 "Practical research" project No.1.1.1.3/1/24/A/099
Project partners are LSFRI "Silava" (leading partner), Dalgas Ltd. and OTEMA Ltd.
Project implementation period is 36 months.
Total budget is 592,218.59 EUR, incl. ERDF funding 459,983.96 EUR.
National and European-wide studies have assessed the increase in resistance, resilience, recovery as well overyielding of mixed stands in comparison to monospecific ones, concluding that the differences depend on the involved species, extent of admixture, stand density, and water availability. Birch-spruce mixture is common in Baltic countries and potentially suitable across substantial part of Norther Europe, yet relevant studies have been sporadic and the effects of such mixture on climate-related stresses are still unclear. The goal of the project is to assess these effects under mesotrophic site conditions and elaborate the technology to maximize the gain for adaptation, climate-change mitigation as well as biodiversity components, ensuring compatibility with EU policies while advancing fulfilment of Latvia strategy of adaptation to climate change and national energy and climate plan.
Project will be carried out in RIS3 area Knowledge-intensive bio-economy as applied research unrelated to economic activity in the fields of Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. It will contribute to vital national interests: 1) development of human resources in science, involving a young researcher and two PhD students; 2) cooperation between research institute and commercial enterprises, involving two forest management companies (Dalgas Ltd. and OTEMA Ltd.), based on their management strategies and competences. This cooperation will ensure more efficient gathering of material, assessment of it as necessary for practical use and development of recommendations that are highly relevant for practice and policies.
Project will be based on direct comparison of monospecific and mixed stands, in terms of:
- Productivity – assessing the overyielding and differences in carbon pools;
- Sensitivity and susceptibility towards meteorological extremes, mainly drought, based on dendroclimatological methodology, developing modifiers for improvements of the growth models;
- Biodiversity – focusing on ground vegetation, epiphytes and tree-related microhabitats, and using the results for scenario modeling for more efficient biodiversity maintenance at the landscape scale as well as elaboration of closer-to-nature forest management.
Project results will be available without discrimination in form of open data and open-access publications. Project will be carried out as industrial research, and to ensure further development of its results, mainly for inclusion in management support systems as well as support systems for enterprise sustainability reporting, environmental and carbon credit certifications, license agreement for the technology will be secured by the leading research partner (LSFRI "Silava") in an open auction.