Environmental Impacts of Artificial Forest Regeneration After the Vaia Windstorm in Northern Italy: A Life Cycle Assessment Case Study

Climate change is increasing forest vulnerability, and extreme disturbances such as windstorms can cause major economic and social losses. Forest recovery after such events often relies on salvage logging and extensive planting of seedlings produced in nurseries to rapidly restore forest cover. While effective, these interventions, particularly when applied over large areas, may also produce environmental impacts that are largely absent under spontaneous regeneration. Following the Vaia windstorm in northern Italy in 2018, several reforestation interventions were implemented to restore forest cover. We focused on one intervention and conducted a life cycle assessment to quantify its environmental impacts, using the planting of 800 four-year-old Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst) seedlings as the functional unit, combined with chipping on the site of forest biomass residues. The largest contributions were to global warming potential (443.91 kg CO2 eq), human toxicity (167.72 kg 1,4-DCB eq), and freshwater ecotoxicity (142.43 kg 1,4-DCB eq). Seedling production and field establishment dominated these impact categories. Among field operations, manufacturing and transporting plastic shelters for seedling protection accounted for the highest share of global warming potential.