Adapting Forests to an Uncertain Climate: A Critical Technology Review

Forests across the world play a crucial role in the fight against the climate catastrophe as well as mass extinction that characterise the Anthropocene. However, they are also increasingly threatened by destructive human practices such as agriculture and mining, but also climate change itself. This article focuses on forests in Germany, which have been devastated in recent years by heat, drought and bark beetles. Hence, forests and associated forestry practices are in urgent need of adaptation to a different climate. Several digital applications have been developed to assist with this effort. Adaptation is complicated by the epistemological challenge of climate change, that the uncertainty of how exactly climate change will affect specific local sites, as well as future markets for forest products, poses. In this short paper we review how two applications address this uncertainty in their approach to supporting the climate adaptation of forests and draw out preliminary lessons for HCI research and design.