Management for multiple ecosystem services

 

Ecosystems provide a multitude of services to society. Traditionally, ecosystems have been managed to optimize the provisioning services such as wood production, but the importance of the regulating and cultural ecosystem services is increasingly recognized. Hence, we need to develop management strategies that optimize a multitude of services, seeing that society may value certain ecosystem services differently over time and from one place to another.

The lab coordinates a European research network for studying the importance of small forest patches in agricultural landscapes for the delivery of ecosystem services (smallFOREST).

 

SmallforestPicture research Pieter VangansbekePicture research Sanne VDBSmallforestSmallforest

 

 

Current projects

  1. AGFORPRO: Agroforestry in Flanders: an economically viable solution for the demand for agro-ecological production methods (more info)
    • Ecological interactions between tree, soil, crop and environment in Flemish agroforestry-systems (more info)
  1. Ecological and socio-economic optimization of nature-oriented measures on agricultural land (more info)
  2. Trees against malaria: strengthening of academic and research capacity on Cinchona trees in Peru, Ecuador and DR Congo
  3. SmallFOREST: Biodiversity and ecosystem services of small forest fragments in European landscapes (more info)
    • Ecosystem services of soil-dwelling arthropods in small forest remnants (more info)

Finished projects

  1. Decision support for harvesting methods of hardwood with large diameter in Flanders (more info)
  2. DYLCAFO: DYnamic Life Cycle Assessment on FOrestry (more info)
  3. Environmental, social and economic feasibility of forest conversion (more info)
  4. Evaluation of policy instruments for sustainable forest management and forest expansion in Flanders (more info)
  5. Model-based wood price predictions from public forest timber sales in Flanders (more info)
  6. Relations between growth dynamics, forest management and wood characacteristics of birch on sandy soils in Flanders (more info)
  7. Seeing the trees for the wood: using 40 years of research in the forest Aelmoeseneie to answer current environmental questions (more info)
  8. Smart land management for biobased economies (more info)
  9. Soil compaction due to mechanized forest harvesting (more info)
  10. Validation and optimalisation of forest friendly harvesting in Flanders (more info)