Windstorm impacts on forest-related socio-ecological systems: an analysis from a socio-economic and governance perspective with a focus on the Vaia storm

Strengthening the resilience capacities of forest socio-ecological systems (SES) to wind disturbances requires understanding also institution-al, economic and social aspects. Combining content analysis (policy documents), online survey (68 respondents) and interviews to ex-perts and citizens (304 respondents), the study explores the governance structures of the four most affected Regions/Autonomous Provinces and the stakeholders’ satisfaction and priori-ties concerning public administrations’ actions. It tentatively estimates the economic value changes of selected ecosystem services (ES) in the Belluno province and Rocca Pietore municipality. The site-specific results show that after Vaia the value of provisioning ES (wood production) has significantly increased, cultural ES (tourism/recreation) has decreased and regu-lating ES (protection) increased. An innovative framework was created to evaluate governance in terms of institutional capacity to deal with windstorms and their consequences. While the governance responses were quite uniform in the emergency phase, differences exist among regions in the post-event phase. All the studied public administrations are weak in their foresight capacities and preparedness. 57% of the local population would like the forests to be restored and then carefully managed so that they will be more resilient to future events; 36% think it is necessary to talk more about forests in schools and the media.