Development of Decision Support Systems for Integrative Forest Management: Insights from a Eurasian and North American survey

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are increasingly important for modern forest management, offering tools to plan, implement, and evaluate strategies that balance production, conservation, and climate adaptation. Integrative Forest Management (IFM) emphasizes multifunctionality safeguarding biodiversity, mitigating climate risks, and sustaining ecosystem services, yet the extent to which current DSS meet these demands remains unclear.

This study presents findings from Deliverable 5.4 of the TRANSFORMIT Horizon Europe project, which assessed DSS capacity to support IFM principles. We developed a Catalogue of DSS, informed by a survey of 42 DSS managers across Eurasia and North America, to evaluate functionalities against 40 IFM-related variables. These variables span forest production, protection, and conservation, including indicators for ecosystem services, disturbance regimes, and biodiversity.

Results reveal a mixed picture. DSS are robust in traditional forestry domains, like estimating timber yield, stand development metrics, and carbon accounting, yet they exhibit significant gaps in IFM-critical areas. Representation of non-wood forest products, recreational values, hydrological services, and soil carbon remains limited, constraining multifunctional forest planning. Similarly, while some DSS simulate abiotic disturbances (storms, wildfires), few address biotic threats (insects, pathogens), reducing their utility for resilience-based management under climate change. Biodiversity support is weakest: most tools rely on structural proxies (e.g., deadwood) rather than species-level indicators or habitat connectivity, limiting their capacity to inform conservation-oriented decisions. Despite these shortcomings, DSS have advanced considerably, enabling multi-objective analyses and holistic assessments that were unattainable a generation ago. They increasingly integrate ecosystem services and climate-related risks, supporting IFM aspirations at multiple spatial scales. However, usability challenges and a research-practice gap persist, as many tools remain tailored to scientific rather than operational contexts.

To fully realize DSS potential for IFM, enhancements are needed in three areas: (i) ecological complexity, i.e., better modeling of biodiversity and habitat dynamics; (ii) disturbance representation, i.e., improved simulation of climate-driven risks; and (iii) user experience, i.e., intuitive visualization and stakeholder-oriented design. Aligning DSS functionality with policy objectives and practitioner needs will be critical for fostering adaptive, multifunctional forestry.

European initiatives like the TRANSFORMIT Horizon project facilitate progress toward this goal, bridging science and practice to develop DSS that enable balanced, evidence-based decisions. By addressing current limitations, DSS can become key enablers of climate-smart, biodiversity-friendly forest management, supporting resilience and sustainability in an era of rapid environmental change.