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Factsheets
The HoliSoils Factsheets provide short, informative guides that distil major insights from the project’s research on forest soils. They connect scientific results with real world application, offering readers practical knowledge to improve soil monitoring, sustainable management and resilience to climate change.
HoliSoils Factsheet – Climate-Smart Forestry for Soil Health
Discover how Climate-Smart Forestry can strengthen soil health and long-term forest resilience. This HoliSoils factsheet explains how CSF practices such as continuous-cover forestry, mixed-species stands, peatland rewetting and controlled fuel management reduce emissions, enhance carbon storage and protect soils from disturbance.
Clear comparisons, practical tools and guidance help forest managers, practitioners and policymakers optimise decisions across Europe’s diverse ecosystems. Download the factsheet and explore the full HoliSoils results.
HoliSoils Factsheet – How can forest management reduce the risk of forest fires and its impact on soils in the Mediterranean basin?
Forest fires pose growing risks to Mediterranean forests and their soils. This HoliSoils factsheet shows how Climate-Smart Forestry practices, including thinning and controlled fuel management, can reduce fire severity while protecting soil carbon and supporting drought resilience.
Using results from real-world test sites, it highlights benefits, trade-offs, and good practices to help forest managers make informed, site-specific decisions.
HoliSoils Factsheet – Effects of thinning intensity on soil properties and carbon stock
Thinning is widely used to improve forest growth and resilience, but its intensity strongly affects soils. This HoliSoils factsheet examines how different thinning intensities shape soil carbon stocks, microclimate, and soil biodiversity, and how understorey management can enhance or undermine these effects.
Based on long-term field experiments, it provides practical guidance to support climate-smart forest management decisions.
HoliSoils Factsheet – Norway spruce monocultures are losing the climate race—mixed forests offer a safer bet for Europe’s carbon future
Forest composition strongly influences how ecosystems respond to climate stress and disturbance.
This HoliSoils factsheet shows that mixed-species forests are more resilient than Norway spruce monocultures, with more stable soil carbon dynamics, lower vulnerability to drought and pests, and reduced carbon losses after disturbance, based on long-term field evidence from Central Europe.
HoliSoils Factsheet – How can forest management practices support soils in mitigating GHG emissions?
European forests are essential to reaching the EU’s climate‑neutrality goal, and the HoliSoils project shows that how these forests are managed has a major impact on their ability to store carbon.
The modeling finds that practices like keeping a continuous forest canopy, planting species adapted to future climate conditions, and reducing disturbance help forests hold more carbon in both trees and soils, while also keeping them more resilient.
