While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivity.

Aim: Since forest planning is characterized by long time horizon and it typically involves large areas of land and numerous stakeholders, uncertainty and risk should play an important role when developing forest management plans. The aim of this study is to review different methods to deal with risk and uncertainty in forest planning, listing problems that forest managers may face during the preparation of management plans and trying to give recommendations in regard to the application of each method according to the problem case. The inclusion of risk and uncertainty in decision support systems is also analyzed.Area: It covers the temporal and spatial scale of forest planning, the spatial context, the participation process, the objectives dimensions and the good and services addressed.Material and methods: Several hundreds of articles dealing with uncertainty and risk were identified regarding different forestry-related topics and approaches. Form them, around 170 articles were further reviewed, categorized and evaluated.Main results: The study presents a thorough review and classification of methods and approaches to consider risk and uncertainty in forest planning. Moreover, new approaches are introduced, showing the opportunities that their application present in forest planning.Research highlights: The study can aid forest managers in the decision making process when designing a forest management plan considering risk and uncertainty.Keywords: operations research; optimal alternative; stochastic risk; endogenous risk; stand level; forest level.