Forest Health

Abstract

AbstractForests mainly consist of long-lived trees or shrub species and are exposed to natural or human disturbances of different severities. They are essential components of the natural development of forest ecosystems, since by triggering natural selection and ecological succession processes, they can achieve the best status in terms of species composition and structure. Nevertheless, extreme events can cause serious economic or naturalistic losses and, in some cases, endanger specific forest ecosystems. Disturbance events that damage forests vary and include pests and diseases, fires, pollution, climate changes, overexploitation or inadequate silvicultural practices, excessive grazing and browsing, to name just a few. Health monitoring of forests is a necessary condition to provide useful information for the conservation of forest resources, as well as to support forest management practices aimed at increasing the resilience of forests and their adaptation capacity. Through ground surveys, the Italian national forest inventory INFC has classified the health condition of Italian forests and produced the estimates presented in the chapter. These concern the distribution of the Forest area by pathologies and damage presence, severity and cause. Estimates of the Forest area affected by defoliation, divided by defoliation class and localization of defoliation, are also presented.