Exploring the socio-economic, cultural and recreational dimensions of forest restoration and the trade-offs between different ecosystem services and land-use objectives.
The context
Forests are facing increasing pressures from changing climate conditions and growing expectations for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and climate resilience.
In Central Hungary, decisions about forest management need to consider how forests can remain resilient under future conditions while supporting biodiversity and providing other benefits to society. Changing management approaches can create both opportunities and costs, and their effects may differ across forest types, locations and time horizons.
The central challenge is to understand how different forest restoration and management pathways could contribute to resilient, multifunctional forests under changing environmental conditions. NatuRISE will examine questions around:
The focus is on helping decision-makers understand the wider consequences of alternative restoration pathways, rather than assessing ecological outcomes in isolation.
Forest managers and public authorities
Provide practical knowledge of forest management, policy objectives, constraints and implementation options.
Environmental organisations
Contribute biodiversity, conservation and societal perspectives.
Land and forest stakeholders
Bring knowledge of local conditions, management practices and potential impacts.
Researchers
Assess ecological, economic and climate-related dimensions of alternative restoration pathways.
The case study will use the Listen → Define → Assess → Test → Refine approach to connect forest-management experience with scientific assessment.
Stakeholders will help frame relevant management questions and evaluate the practical relevance of emerging scenarios and assessments. This iterative process will help refine the analysis and identify options that are both evidence-based and meaningful in practice.
The Central Hungary case study will provide a real-world context for assessing forest restoration, biodiversity and climate resilience together, while exploring the economic and societal implications of alternative management pathways.
The NatuRISE case studies connect scientific evidence with real-world restoration decisions. Through collaboration with stakeholders, each case study will help test and refine methods for understanding the benefits, costs, trade-offs and distributional effects of nature restoration. As the project progresses, this page will evolve from a description of the context into a gateway to the evidence generated through the case study.