research: working areas of the Institute of Silviculture

Our aim is a leading position in research on sustainable use and management of forests on national and international level. Core task of Silviculture is the integration of ecological, socio-economical and technical knowledge towards the sustainable management of forest resources. To fulfil our targets we work in the following fields:

  • Silvicultural techniques
    develops techniques to regenerate, tend and harvest stands and individual trees
                      
  • Mountain forest silviculture
    focuses on the special conditions of alpine forest ecosystems
                   
  • Sustainable forest resource management
    develops and evaluates multi-purpose management concepts at stand, unit and landscape level
    under consideration of interrelationships with other landuse systems
                                           
  • Forest ecosystem modelling
    develops different kind of models, those help to illustrate and understand their interacton to disturbances (e.g.: climate change, wind, fire) or silvicultural management strategies
                          
  • Silvicultural planning and multiple-criteria decision support
    develops knowledge management approaches in forest resource management through development and application of multi-criteria analysis methods and decision support system applications
                             
  • Forest genetics and biodiversity
    contributes to the maintainance of biodiversity in forest ecosystems through ample integration of genetic knowledge in forest resource management and contributes to the maintainance of species diversity through research in the procurement of plant material of rare tree and shrub species