Forestry

To provide students with the knowledge of to the functioning of forest ecosystems, and the principles and techniques of sustainable forest management and planning, necessary for the provision of ecosystem services for production and regulation, with special reference to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Understand the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on single trees, stands and forest communities; recognize the forest types of Lombardy and their environmental preferences; describe quantitatively the characteristics of a forest stand by field survey and numerical processing of data, and forecasting its evolution over time; understand the relationships between forests, climate change and biodiversity; quantify ecosystem services and wood production that can be expressed by a forest catchment; quantify the vulnerability of forests to hydro-geological hazards, climate change and wildfire; choose forest management strategies adequate to provide the chosen ecosystem services and guarantee their environmental, economic and social sustainability; interpret and analyze forest planning documents (II and III level plans); design and write a harvest plan; calculate mass, increment and harvest rate for forest stands; describe with cartographic methods the physical and ecological characteristics of forest stands; understand and apply national and regional forest regulations.