OptiForValue fieldwork in action across Spain!

This field campaign led by CSIC-INIA-ICIFOR (WP2 – OptiManage), spans multiple experimental sites in Spain — Villasur de Herreros, Burgos; Busnela, Burgos; Lubia, Soria; San Pablo de los Montes, Toledo; Fuencaliente, Ciudad Real; and Villanueva de Alcorcón, Guadalajara.

The experimental network is primarily located in reforested pine stands (with the exception of Villanueva de Alcorón) and includes a range of thinning trials designed to evaluate adaptive silvicultural strategies under climate change scenarios. The overarching objective is to enhance forest resilience and mitigation capacity by promoting structural and compositional diversification, reducing wildfire risk, and improving ecosystem stability and adaptive potential under increasing climatic stress. These sites also provide a framework to assess how management interventions can support biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning, and the long-term sustainability of Mediterranean forest systems.

Current monitoring activities include dendrochronological sampling, litterfall collection, understory vegetation transects, bark thickness measurements, hemispherical canopy photography, and natural regeneration surveys to evaluate ecosystem responses to different management treatments.