This book outlines the main results of the Alpine Space project: Management Strategies to Adapt Alpine Space Forests to Climate Change Risks (MANFRED) within the framework of the European Territorial Cooperation INTERREG Alpine Space Programme 2007-2013 . When we first discussed the idea of publishing a book on management strategies to adapt Alpine Space forests to climate change risks, we asked ourselves if practitioners needed an additional book to add to the shelves of already available texts on this subject. However, after scrutinizing the information available we came to realize that the story of adaptive forest management is far from being told exhaustively. The topic is multifaceted - both on a scientific and applied level. We found plentiful information on climate change and its effects on forests in general. The tailored guidance for forest practitioners focused on a particular region is difficult to track down. This often results in foresters left with a vast amount of information that is not necessarily relevant to their region. The focus of the book is the Alpine Space, encompassing a portion of the mountain forests of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, and Switzerland. The scientific issues are grouped around the topics: Intensity of Climate Change, Regional Climate Change Impacts, and Future Forest Type Suitability from an ecological and economic perspective. These topics are addressed in the introductory chapters of the presented book. The authors of these chapters are concerned that climate change will have consequences for mountain forests in the Alpine Space making decisions surrounding forest management increasingly difficult. From our analyses we conclude that many mountain forests in the Alpine Space will experience decades of increasing productivity mainly due to a longer growing season. However, manifold risks such as more frequent and longer dry periods, the increasing pressure from pests and pathogens, and the increasing frequency of forest fires will become more pertinent. The practical issues of forest management in a changing climate need to start with the appreciation of the extraordinary longevity of forests. Even foresters who are traditionally trained to plan the management of a tree community lifespan of a century or more, the topic of climate change has been demonstrated to be difficult to grasp. The understanding of the consequences of global change is limited. Coupled with this, a broad range of projected ecological site condition changes, add to the confusion. Foresters do not have the option to wait until more complete information is available. Since it is nearly impossible to plan for a particular expected set of site conditions, the management strategies selected need to be flexible enough to account for a broad margin of uncertainty. This means that foresters need to transition to ecologically stable forest types that are still economically viable. This approach in many ways does not differ from traditional multiple use multiple species forest management, but can be tailored to adapt forest to climate change risks. With climate change, foresters face new challenges. Up to now, foresters were able to learn from the past. The site conditions comprising the local climate, soil fertility, and the physio-geographic setting were considered to be invariable and status of forests could be interpreted in the context of these parameters. Presently, several of these parameters are changing simultaneously: anticipated average temperature and precipitation, along with site productivity as a consequence of the prolonged enrichment of the ecosystems with nitrogen from airborne sources. In addition, the speeding up of the exchange of goods has resulted in increasing risks of transmission of forest pests and pathogens. In addition to monitoring endemic forest pests, this in turn has resulted in foresters being required to monitor the potential threat of new species to these ecosystems. In the professional lifetime of a single forester the climate is not expected to change dramatically. However, individual forest stands live a century or more, which corresponds to three or more generations of foresters between seed germination and harvesting. In this timeframe we can expect that the climatic conditions at a given site can change fundamentally. It is indeed a huge scientific responsibility to define forest management strategies that will be beneficial for forests throughout their lifespan. In our book we do not touch on the social and economic impacts of climate change on Alpine Space forests. The evaluation of the expectations of ecosystem services of a future society is outside the scope of our book. In developing locally relevant adaptive management strategies, we selected pairs of forest sites in adjacent countries. The rationale for the pairwise selection was that the countries have different traditions of coping with challenges in forest management. The administrative organization of forestry is often focused on individual countries. In this we attempted to bring together expert knowledge and learn from good practices across the region, as well as foster international exchange. The chosen transnational research sites also covered different facets of climate change risks. In particular we covered the topics of increasing pressure from pests and pathogens, the effect of climate change on protection forests, the likely aggravation of air pollution effects on forests, and the future potential of tree species in a changing climate. With this ample list of topics and the broad geographical coverage of site types we hope to offer food for thought to many readers. In addition, we hope to stimulate a discussion process in the scientific and practitioner forestry communities.
