Greening trends of primary and managed forests in Lithuania

Sammanfattning

Primary forests are species-rich, carbon-storing ecosystems that represent natural landscapes without human intervention. In contrast, traditional European forestry practices often involve monoculture plantations aimed at maximizing timber yields, leading to reduced tree life cycles, and affecting the carbon cycle. Despite accounting for less than 3% of forest land in the European Union, primary forests provide crucial ecosystem services, particularly in climate change mitigation, leading to greater research interest. This master thesis investigates greening trends of hemi-boreal primary and secondary forests in Lithuania using the Two-Band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2) applied to Landsat satellite data. The analysis of mean 95th EVI2 percentiles reveal significantly positive rises in productivity between 1984 and 2023, with 19.7% and 16.4% increases for managed and primary forests, respectively. This amplification over time occurs regardless of stand age at both forest types suggesting that forest greening is a response to regional environmental change.