Legacies, socio-economic and biophysical processes and drivers : the case of future forest cover expansion in the Polish Carpathians and Swiss Alps

摘要

Mountain forest areas are key for providing a\udwide range of ecosystem services and are hot spots for land\uduse change processes, in particular, increase in forest cover\udat the expense of mountain pastures and meadows.\udMountain forest systems in eastern and western Europe\udhave likely similar future socio-economic situations but\udsignificantly different socio-economic history. Using a\udscenario-based land use modelling approach (Dyna-CLUE\udframework) we model three scenarios (trend, liberalisation\udand self-sufficiency) of future land use in the Polish\udCarpathians and the Swiss Alps, focussing on forest cover\udchange. We find that forest cover increase can be expected\udto continue in European mountainous regions under all\udlikely scenarios, limited only by relatively strict policy\udinterventions. Biophysical factors, rather than socio-eco-\udnomic ones, are key for defining the suitability for, and\udtherefore likely locations of future forest cover, but land\uduse legacy plays a very important role in the spatial pat-\udterns of future forest cover, particularly in eastern Europe.