Forest Hazard Mitigation and Ecosystem Function Restoration in the Era of Climate Crisis: Safeguarding Ecological Integrity for Sustainable Forest Management

Extreme events induced by climate change—such as intense heatwaves, prolonged droughts, and catastrophic floods—profoundly alter the functions of forest ecosystems, which serve as the Earth’s largest terrestrial carbon reservoirs. In particular, forest hazards (e.g., landslides, wildfires, and pest/pathogen outbreaks), whose frequency and magnitude are increasing due to climate change, can abruptly disrupt the ecosystem services provided by forests. Both the changing climate itself and the cascade of forest hazards it triggers are projected to imperil the sustainability of forest ecosystem provisioning and impose major challenges for forest management. Accordingly, it is imperative to deepen our understanding of the nexus between climate change and forest-related hazards, enhance the accuracy and precision of future hazard forecasts, and develop management approaches capable of mitigating their impacts. Equally critical is our ability to swiftly rehabilitate degraded forest ecosystems—whose functions may be halted or require extensive time to recover—so as to restore their ecological integrity and ecosystem provisioning capacity.

This research topic aims to synthesize our understanding of three key areas: predicting the occurrence of forest-related hazards, whose frequency and scale are both increasing under climate change, developing forest management approaches to mitigate those hazards, and restoring the functionality of impacted forest ecosystems. We welcome submissions on (but not limited to) the following themes:

· Innovations in Forest Hazard Prediction and Monitoring: Advanced monitoring and forecasting approaches using remote sensing, AI, and other cutting‑edge technologies for the precise detection and prediction of forest-related hazards.
· Post‑Hazard Ecosystem Restoration and Resilience Assessment: Techniques and practices for restoring ecosystem structure and function in areas affected by forest-related hazards. Development of methodologies to quantify forest ecosystem functions and services, and to evaluate the resilience of these functions following forest-related hazards.
· Forest policy and management frameworks: Policy analyses, management strategies and case studies for mitigating, assessing, and adapting to climate change and forest hazards—including collaborative, cross‑institutional frameworks for prevention, forecasting, and restoration.

We invite researchers to contribute Original Research, Mini Reviews, Reviews, Opinion or Perspective, Methods articles on the above themes.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Keywords: Forest hazards, ecological restoration, ecosystem functioning, climate change

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.