Forest cover changes in mountainous regions - driver, trajectories and implications (FORECOM)

The Polish-Swiss joint research project FORECOM has the following objectives:

• to identify trends in forest cover change over the past 150 years for the Polish Carpathians and the Swiss Alps;

• to quantify the relative contribution of climate and land use to the past forest cover change;

• to develop combined climate and land use change scenarios for projecting future forest cover change;

• to assess important implications of forest cover change: historical and future trends in forest carbon pools and potential impacts on biodiversity.