Forest Resources and Management

Our mission is: "Building knowledge on Swiss forests for science, sustainable management, and people". Our ultimate goal is to promote sustainable use and climate-smart forest management of the Swiss forests in the 21st Century.

Our activity is directed to:

  • Advance our understanding on condition, response and feedbacks of Swiss forests to global change drivers, by long-term, large-scale monitoring and experiments, analysis, modeling and predictions.
  • Develop science-driven solutions for sustainable management and forestry options in a changing climate, to ensure regeneration and sustainable provision of forests products and services, and protect biodiversity.

  • Connect the science and the applied forest management, by novel methods, approaches, Decision Support Systems and transfer to managers, administrations and people.

 

Our strengths stay into:

  • Long-term data: tradition and innovation. Look at our growth and yield network on managed forests (since 1885), at the network on forest reserves, (since 1948), or at our role within the Swiss National Forest Inventory LFI. Look also at our recent initiative SwissAIM to advance the monitoring of Swiss forest.
  • A balanced blend of expertise, methods, information science and technology. Our expertise goes from inventorying and monitoring to statistics and modeling, from sylviculture to forestry and bioenergy, from data management to geo-spatial information systems and science, and from field methods to close range remote sensing, data visualization and computer vision.
  • Swiss focus, international perspective. While our focus is on the Swiss national scale, we are active from local to international scale. Our collaborators have important roles in international activities and programs, like the UNECE ICP Forests, the ENFIN, the FAO ToS.

News

18.12.2024

WSL researchers answer the most frequently asked questions about the impact of the winter storm on Swiss forests.

16.12.2024

Wood is the material of the future. Researchers from Empa and WSL analyzed the material flows of wood and discovered untapped opportunities.

11.12.2024

WSL researchers took a close look at two older studies on the future of beech. The gloomy forecast of one of them will probably come true.

05.12.2024

The Swiss soil of the year 2025 is characterized by earthworms. WSL researchers are investigating how their activity affects forest soils.

Publications

Projects

Research Groups and Staff

Forest Resources and Management

Marco Ferretti

Head of Research Unit

Rita Ghosh

Visiting scientist

Stand Dynamics and Silviculture

Martina Hobi

Group leader

Carl-Michael Heimo Andersson

Technical staff member

Harald Bugmann

Visiting scientist

Tomma Feltgen

Temporary employee / Scientific staff member

Jonas Glatthorn

Scientific staff member

Nathalie Gut

Temporary employee

Jokin Idoate Lacasia

Temporary employee

Ella Jaeger

Trainee

Tobias Kalt

Technical staff member

Tobias Kühnhanss

Master student

Andrea D. Kupferschmid

Scientific staff member

Iza Murzynowska

Technical staff member

Petia Simeonova Nikolova

Scientific staff member

Jens Nitzsche

Technical staff member

Gilbert Projer

Technical staff member

Hubert Schmid

Technical staff member

Julia Schwarz

Scientific staff member

Jonas Stillhard

Technical staff member

Kathrin Streit

Technical staff member

Christoph Tellenbach

Technical staff member

Elliot Vaudaux

Civilian service employees

Chiara Wülser

Trainee

Matthias Wüthrich

Technical staff member

GIS

Martin Hägeli

Group leader

Andri Baltensweiler

Technical staff member

Sandro Bischof

Technical staff member

Colin Kretz Bloom

Postdoc

Angela Leonie Braun

Master student

Enikö Fey

IT specialist

Marielle Fraefel

Technical staff member

Rolf Grütter

Visiting scientist

Dominik Sebastian Haas-Artho

Software engineer

Ionut Iosifescu Enescu

Software engineer

Rebecca Kurup

Software engineer

Rolf Meile

IT specialist

Ranita Pal

Software engineer

Enrico Peruselli

Software engineer

Kaspar Lukas Peter

Guest

Francesco Rota

Postdoc

Christian Schmid

Software engineer

Sandro Silva

Software engineer

Yasmin Waldeck

Software engineer

Lukas Wotruba

IT specialist

Florian Zellweger

Scientific staff member

Zhiqing Zhang

Temporary employee

Sustainable Forestry

Janine Schweier

Group leader

Clemens Blattert

Scientific staff member

Leo Bont

Technical staff member

Shayani Fernando

Postdoc

Fabian Gemperle

Scientific assistant

Stefan Holm

Software engineer

Hristina Hristova

Scientific staff member

Moritz Kalinka

Master student

Sunni K.P. Kushwaha

Postdoc

Flavia Luz

Master student

Simon Emil Mutterer

PhD student

Nial Thomas Perry

PhD student

Julien Pierre Pittet

Master student

Laura Ramstein

Temporary employee / Scientific staff member

Samuel Ugo Ringier

PhD student

Timo Schneider

Master student

Oliver Thees

Temporary employee

Resource Analysis

Esther Thürig

Group leader

Markus Didion

Scientific staff member

Dominik Fabry

Trainee

Roman Flury

Postdoc

Claudia Guidi

Scientific staff member

Anne Herold-Bonardi

Technical staff member

Jeanne Portier

Scientific staff member

Brigitte Rohner

Scientific staff member

Erik Rösler

Technical staff member

Golo Stadelmann

Technical staff member

Plant regeneration ecology

Barbara Moser

interim Group leader

Julia Bernet

Master student

David Böhm

Visiting scientist

Giulia Burini

PhD student

Erica Ceresa

Temporary employee

Sereina Hinder

Bachelor student

Andrea Martac

Technical staff member

Ugo Molteni

Scientific staff member

Anouchka Perret-Gentil

Lab technician

Daniel Scherrer

Scientific staff member

Scientific Service NFI

Christoph Fischer

Group leader

Meinrad Abegg

Technical staff member

Philippe Ahles

Software engineer

Barbara Allgaier Leuch

Technical staff member

Marc Baume

Temporary employee

Fadri Beeli

Temporary employee

Aline Bornand

PhD student

Urs Beat Brändli

Visiting scientist

Fabrizio Cioldi

Technical staff member

Björn Wolfgang Dreier

Temporary employee

Christoph Düggelin

Technical staff member

Fulvio Giudici

Temporary employee

Ella Raymonde Hartmann

Fieldworker

Hans Rudolf Hochuli

Temporary employee

Bruno Holderegger

Temporary employee

Paul Koller

Temporary employee

Larissa Katharina Peter

Technical staff member

Nataliia Rehush

Technical staff member

Ross Taylor Shackleton

Scientific staff member

François Sottas

Temporary employee

Simon Speich

IT specialist

Peter Stoll

Scientific staff member

Christian Walter Temperli

Scientific staff member

Berthold Traub

IT specialist