Identifying predictors of resilience in European forests through stakeholders' perceptions

Abstract

Enhancing forest resilience to climate change requires operationalizing resilience assessments and engaging stakeholders to support effective decision-making. Here, we assessed stakeholder perceptions of resilience indicators (i.e., predictors and system variables) and their relevance for promoting the resilience of European forests across ecological and socioeconomic dimensions. Stakeholder profiles and regional systems were considered as complementary contextual dimensions to explore variability in resilience perceptions across different forest social-ecological contexts. Through bipartite networks and ranking analyses, we assessed whether stakeholders perceived modular relationships between resilience predictors and systems variables associated with forest ecosystem services and forest-based value chains, identified the predictors most broadly relevant for promoting resilience, and assessed their perceived operational applicability. Results revealed consistent modules linking biodiversity-related variables with key resilience predictors associated with forest management, conservation and forest structural attributes across stakeholder profiles and regional contexts. By contrast, productivity-related variables were associated with predictors related to harvesting intensity, land use, and forest economics, particularly within the socioeconomic dimension, among value chain actors, and in a central and northern Europe contexts. Forest management and forest structural attributes consistently emerged as the most broadly connected predictors across dimensions, whereas some predictors, such as deadwood, were perceived as having more specialized relationships with biodiversity-related variables. Perceived practicability was moderately correlated with explanatory strength and measurability, suggesting a gap between perceived relevance and operational implementation. Overall, our results highlight the value of perception-based network approaches for identifying resilience priorities and supporting resilience-oriented governance and decision-making under climate change.