Windthrow is all too often looked at as an exceptional, catastrophic phenomenon rather than a recurrent natural disturbance that falls within the spectrum of chronic and acute effects of wind on forests, and that drives ecosystem patterns and processes. This paper provides an integrative overview of the nature, contributing factors and impacts of wind-caused disturbance in forests, including its effects on trees, stands, landscapes and soils. Windthrow is examined through the integrating concepts of: the capacity of trees for acclimative growth, the limitation of acclimative growth under inter-tree competition, the recurrent nature of severe weather, how terrain and soil conditions affect local stand vulnerability and the effect of recurrent windthrow on stand dynamics and soils. Windthrow management should take place within a framework of general risk management, with evaluation of the likelihood, severity and potential impacts of wind damage considered – with reference to the broad and specific aims of management. There is much to be gained from interdisciplinary communication about the nature and consequences of recurrent wind damage. There are opportunities for climatologists, engineers, ecologists, geomorphologists and others to develop integrative process models at the tree, stand and landscape scales that will improve our collective understanding, and inform management decision-making.

In Boreal North America, management approaches inspired by the variability in natural disturbances are expected to produce more resilient forests. Wind storms are recurrent within Boreal Ontario. The objective of this study was to simulate wind damage for common Boreal forest types for regular as well as extreme wind speeds. The ForestGALES_BC windthrow prediction model was used for these simulations. Input tree-level data were derived from permanent sample plot (PSP) data provided by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. PSPs were assigned to one of nine stand types: Balsam fir-, Jack pine-, Black spruce-, and hardwood-dominated stands, and, Jack pine-, spruce-, conifer-, hardwood-, and Red and White pine-mixed species stands. Morphological and biomechanical parameters for the major tree species were obtained from the literature. At 5 m/s, predicted windthrow ranged from 0 to 20%, with damage increasing to 2 to 90% for winds of 20 m/s and to 10 to 100% for winds of 40 m/s. Windthrow varied by forest stand type, with lower vulnerability within hardwoods. This is the first study to provide such broad simulations of windthrow vulnerability data for Boreal North America, and we believe this will benefit policy decisions regarding risk management and forest planning.