Project summary

Riparian forests are amongst the most productive, dynamic and diverse ecosystems on Earth. These forests are categorically associated with rivers and thus have a naturally limited distribution. Despite their limited area coverage in Europe, riparian forests play an important role in terms of the global carbon, nutrient and hydrological cycling, providing habitats and food for many living organisms, and the maintenance of species biodiversity. However, riparian forests are one of the most vulnerable forest ecosystems, belonging to endangered habitats, type G1.2b, in the European Red List of Habitats (ERLH).

Interest in nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate the effect of climate change on forests and enhance their resilience has grown dramatically over the past few years, which has also given rise to the idea of climate-smart forestry (CSF). This concept is based on “from science to policy” approach in order to positively affect the health state and resilience of forests through the promotion of sustainable forest management practices. The increasing demand for innovative forest management strategies to adapt to and mitigate climate change, increase biodiversity, and benefit forest production calls for a novel tools and methodological approaches to monitor and evaluate their effects on forest development over time.

Heaving this in mind, the overall aim of SmartTogether project is to counteract the decline of riparian forests in Serbia by developing new tools and climate-smart forestry approaches to monitor forest vitality and deploy effective management measures.

The project rests on four interconnected pillars:

  1. analysis of the current and past status of riparian forests in Serbia,
  2. obtaining information about trees and long-term reactions to environmental signals, and modelling climate-induced tree growth variations under different RCP scenarios,
  3. a near real-time monitoring of trees’ growth and stress response of the trees using IoT technology,
  4. the identification of relevant stakeholder having a stake in riparian forests issues, as well as their interests to facilitate the transfer of the science-based knowledge into the forest practice.