title: Adapting forest health assessments to changing perspectives on threats--a case example from Sweden.
abstract: A revised Swedish forest health assessment system is presented. The assessment system is composed of several interacting components which target information needs for strategic and operational decision making and accommodate a continuously expanding knowledge base. The main motivation for separating information for strategic and operational decision making is that major damage outbreaks are often scattered throughout the landscape. Generally, large-scale inventories (such as national forest inventories) cannot provide adequate information for mitigation measures. In addition to broad monitoring programs that provide time-series information on known damaging agents and their effects, there is also a need for local and regional inventories adapted to specific damage events. While information for decision making is the major focus of the health assessment system, the system also contributes to expanding the knowledge base of forest conditions. For example, the integrated monitoring programs provide a better understanding of ecological processes linked to forest health. The new health assessment system should be able to respond to the need for quick and reliable information and thus will be an important part of the future monitoring of Swedish forests.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden. Soren.Wulff@slu.se
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wulff
authors.forename: Åke
authors.initials: Å
authors.lastname: Lindelöw
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lundin
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hansson
authors.forename: Anna-Lena
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Axelsson
authors.forename: Pia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Barklund
authors.forename: Sture
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wijk
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ståhl
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001517:Coleoptera; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D003657:Decision Making; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D013548:Sweden; D014197:Trees / Q000382:microbiology*