{"title":"Perception of climate change-related forest dieback in mountain forests among the local population","authors":"Mareike Garms, Maren Leiz, Marius Mayer","doi":"10.1007/s10342-023-01627-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mountain forests provide multiple benefits but are threatened by climate change-induced forest dieback. Although many studies summarize perceptions of forest ecosystem services, relatively few deal with mountain forests. The local population’s perception of forest dieback in mountain forests in relation to climate change has rarely been investigated so far. Their perspective is relevant as local people are often deeply attached to “their” forests, they actively use forest ecosystems and—as voters and taxpayers—they need to support the state’s adaptation and funding measures. Therefore, this study investigates the climate change and forest dieback perception of local inhabitants in two mountain areas of Southern Germany (the German Alps and the Bavarian Forest) with a quantitative survey based on representative online samples (<i>n</i> = 709). Relying conceptually on van der Linden’s (J Environ Psychol 41:112–124, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.11.012) climate change risk perception model, the results show that experiential processing, cognitive and socio-cultural factors are related to locals’ forest dieback and climate change perception, while socio-demographics show no or few connections. Nearly two-thirds (64.7%) of the respondents perceive moderate to strong forest dieback, while more than half (55.0%) of the respondents already observe consequences of climate change. The perceptions of climate change and forest dieback are positively correlated with medium to high strength. This shows that forest dieback could be interpreted as an indicator of climate change, which is difficult to observe due to its long-term nature. We identify three groups of respondents regarding preferred forest adaptation strategies to climate change. In general, respondents support nature-based forest adaptation strategies over intense measures.</p>","PeriodicalId":11996,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Forest Research","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Forest Research","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-023-01627-z","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"FORESTRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Mountain forests provide multiple benefits but are threatened by climate change-induced forest dieback. Although many studies summarize perceptions of forest ecosystem services, relatively few deal with mountain forests. The local population’s perception of forest dieback in mountain forests in relation to climate change has rarely been investigated so far. Their perspective is relevant as local people are often deeply attached to “their” forests, they actively use forest ecosystems and—as voters and taxpayers—they need to support the state’s adaptation and funding measures. Therefore, this study investigates the climate change and forest dieback perception of local inhabitants in two mountain areas of Southern Germany (the German Alps and the Bavarian Forest) with a quantitative survey based on representative online samples (n = 709). Relying conceptually on van der Linden’s (J Environ Psychol 41:112–124, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.11.012) climate change risk perception model, the results show that experiential processing, cognitive and socio-cultural factors are related to locals’ forest dieback and climate change perception, while socio-demographics show no or few connections. Nearly two-thirds (64.7%) of the respondents perceive moderate to strong forest dieback, while more than half (55.0%) of the respondents already observe consequences of climate change. The perceptions of climate change and forest dieback are positively correlated with medium to high strength. This shows that forest dieback could be interpreted as an indicator of climate change, which is difficult to observe due to its long-term nature. We identify three groups of respondents regarding preferred forest adaptation strategies to climate change. In general, respondents support nature-based forest adaptation strategies over intense measures.
山区森林可提供多种益处,但却受到气候变化引起的森林衰退的威胁。尽管许多研究总结了人们对森林生态系统服务的看法,但涉及山区森林的研究相对较少。迄今为止,很少有人调查过当地居民对与气候变化相关的山区森林枯死的看法。他们的观点非常重要,因为当地居民通常与 "他们的 "森林有着深厚的感情,他们积极利用森林生态系统,而且作为选民和纳税人,他们需要支持国家的适应和资助措施。因此,本研究通过一项基于代表性在线样本(n = 709)的定量调查,研究了德国南部两个山区(德国阿尔卑斯山和巴伐利亚森林)当地居民对气候变化和森林枯死的看法。根据 van der Linden(J Environ Psychol 41:112-124, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.11.012)的气候变化风险感知模型的概念,结果表明经验处理、认知和社会文化因素与当地人的森林枯死和气候变化感知有关,而社会人口统计因素则没有或几乎没有关联。近三分之二(64.7%)的受访者认为森林有中度到严重的枯死,而超过一半(55.0%)的受访者已经观察到气候变化的后果。受访者对气候变化和森林衰退的看法呈中度至高度正相关。这表明,森林枯死可被解释为气候变化的一个指标,而气候变化因其长期性而难以观察。我们发现有三类受访者倾向于采用森林适应气候变化的战略。一般来说,受访者支持以自然为基础的森林适应战略,而不是激烈的措施。
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Forest Research focuses on publishing innovative results of empirical or model-oriented studies which contribute to the development of broad principles underlying forest ecosystems, their functions and services.
Papers which exclusively report methods, models, techniques or case studies are beyond the scope of the journal, while papers on studies at the molecular or cellular level will be considered where they address the relevance of their results to the understanding of ecosystem structure and function. Papers relating to forest operations and forest engineering will be considered if they are tailored within a forest ecosystem context.