<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" specific-use="SMUR" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-5303</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A simulation framework for scenario-based quantification of natural hazard protection provided by mountain forests</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Helander</surname>
<given-names>Peter</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ringenbach</surname>
<given-names>Adrian</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bebi</surname>
<given-names>Peter</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Rammer</surname>
<given-names>Werner</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yousefpour</surname>
<given-names>Rasoul</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3604-8279</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hanewinkel</surname>
<given-names>Marc</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4081-6621</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Chair of Forestry Economics and Forest Planning, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, 79104, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos, 7260, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Climate change, Extreme events and natural hazards in mountain regions Research Centre CERC, Davos, 7260, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountainous Regions, Technical University of Munich, Freising 85354, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>These authors contributed equally to this work.</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>21</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>31</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Peter Helander et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5303/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5303/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5303/egusphere-2026-5303.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5303/egusphere-2026-5303.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Mountain forests often provide important protection against gravitational natural hazards. For this reason, developing management strategies that help maintain resilient forests withstanding climate change impacts is crucial. Existing approaches to quantify the protection against natural hazards provided by forests are often extensions of either forest or natural hazard simulation models. In both cases they tend to suffer from a rather coarse, static representation of their secondary component. Simulation results thus lack the temporally integrated perspective needed when modeling the outcome of interacting, partly stochastic processes. We present a simulation framework that allows for quantitative natural hazard assessment over time as a function of forest management and climate scenarios. By linking a process-based forest landscape model with a mass movement hazard simulation model on an annual basis throughout the simulation period, we integrate the effects of climate change and capture the complex interactions of forest growth, forest disturbances and natural hazards in mountain regions in unprecedented detail. This repeated coupling allows annual changes in forest structure to directly affect rockfall dynamics, while rockfall-induced tree mortality feeds back into subsequent forest development. We tested the framework in a case study area in the Swiss Alps and calculated the expected development of rockfall hazard beneath a currently spruce-dominated forest slope considering different forest management intensities. The residual rockfall hazard varied between 20% and 30% depending on the forest management scenario. Rock size and forest basal area had the strongest influence on protection efficiency. We deem the modeling framework suitable for scenario analysis in quantitative risk assessment, especially after disturbance events, as well as for identifying strategies to increase forest resilience in times of climate change. In conjunction with economic data on forest and infrastructure, the modeling framework even allows for integrated economic cost-benefit analysis of forest and natural hazard management.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="31"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung</funding-source>
<award-id>407340_172415</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft</funding-source>
<award-id>EXC-3127</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>