Forest – Climate Nexus – Lectures

MEETING Forest – Climate Nexus between

CREATE, School of Science and Technology, University of Évora and
Faculty of Forestry, Technical University in Zvolen, Slovak

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22nd October 2025, 9:30 h
Room 242 – Colégio do Espirito Santo

PROGRAM

Lectures

Starting point, concept, structure and algorithms of SIBYLA Lex Eterna process-based model for forestry gamification
Fabrika Marek, Faculty of Forestry, Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia

The lecture deals with digital twins, growth simulators, and virtual reality in forestry gamification, education, and research. It describes the current state of the art in the form of a) the semi-empirical SIBYLA Triquetra model, b) a virtual forest in the Unity 3D Game Engine environment. It describes data sources for identical and non-identical digital forest twins. The main part of the lecture is devoted to the SIBYLA Lex Eterna process-based model, which is being developed as a new generation of tool and software. The lecture is supplemented with practical demonstrations of the tools.

New teaching and research platform – web application with unique on-line transfer of meteorological data as a source of data to climate process-based model of SIBYLA
Katarína Střelcová, Faculty of Forestry, Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia

Meteorological and climatological data are key inputs for forest growth models. Climate change, accompanied by extreme weather events, has considerably changed the climate conditions and optimal ecological (particularly climatic) ranges for species. As a consequence, forest ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate-change-fuelled cycles of drought and/or heat, frost hits, fires, or floods, leading to the attenuation of growth processes, disruption of phenological cycles, decreasing resistance, natural disturbances, or dieback. Climate warming is reducing forest productivity in drought-prone areas because rising temperatures and longer periods of water shortage lead to negative tree growth trends and predispose some species to dieback. Water stress is the most frequent and threatening ecological limit to tree growth. Decreasing water availability during heat and drought periods, which might damage the trees and weaken trees physiologically and reduce forest productivity. Aim of the lecture is to present our research and teaching platform www.forestweather.sk as a source of data to growth models in forestry and forest management planning