Nationwide deadwood mapping reveals rising mountain forests vulnerability

Luca Ferrari , Lars T. Waser, Achilleas Psomas, Clemens Mosig , Teja Kattenborn, Christian Ginzler, Verena C. Griess, Mirela Beloiu

Forest mortality is increasing globally under climate change, making detailed, large-scale monitoring essential for understanding ecosystem responses and guiding adaptive forest management. Here, we present a spatio-temporal assessment of standing deadwood in Switzerland from 2018 to 2023, derived from centimeter-scale high-resolution aerial imagery. We reveal a consistent upslope concentration of standing deadwood, with highest shares occurring around mid to high elevations (~1,500 m), despite declining forest cover, and relative increases of up to 43% in overlapping survey areas following the 2018 drought. Maximum temperature anomalies and conifer dominance were the strongest predictors of standing deadwood. The consistent accumulation of standing deadwood at higher elevations suggests increasing vulnerability of mountain forests, with implications for carbon storage, biodiversity, and disturbance susceptibility under ongoing climate change. These patterns highlight the need to address rising forest mortality as a key component of climate-adaptive forest management. Furthermore, our results demonstrate the potential of high-resolution remote sensing for large-scale forest mortality monitoring. Our methods offer a reproducible and transferable framework for identifying vulnerability hotspots and supporting climate-adapted forest management.