The forest protection situation in 2017 was again characterized by extreme weather conditions, above-average temperatures, temporary and regional droughts as well as high volumes of calamity wood due to storms, as the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW) reports.
The largest part of the total bark-beetle damages was caused by the spruce bark-beetle (around 3.0 million sm³) with an increase rate of about 38%. White soft pine was mostly affected by pine engraver beetles. Dr. Peter Mayer, head of the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW), explains the situation as follows: "It was striking that causes of damages that usually have limited relevance severely affected trees in combination and caused them to die."
The worst year
Due to droughts in the first half of 2017 and the early heat wave in June, a negative development of bark-beetle calamities became apparent very early on. With a total of 3.52 million solid cubic meters, 2017 saw a new all-time high of beetle-infested wood according to the Documentation of Forest Damage Factors (DWF) of the BFW. With this, the previous record of 2009 was exceeded by more than a fourth and the increase compared to 2016 was 34%.
