The Streamlit app is rendered on: https://streamlit-timbercuttings-germany.onrender.com/
It might take more than a minute for the web service to restart
In this case we concentrate on the timbercuttings due to various kinds of damage: wind, insects, snow, drought...
This type of timber are logs of felled or fallen trees, so this does not include common standing timber.
The data is grouped by:
- Tree type or tree group
- Federal state
- Kind of damage
- Year
In the last years the proportion of insect damage has increased exponentially. The forced cuttings have left merely bare soil where formerly wooded area was. These patches of bare soils result in higher rainwater runoff potentials, esp. on grounds with steeper slopes.
An example is the catastrophic flood in the Ahr basin of 14-15 July 2021 in Germany. In Rheinland-Pfalz and Nordrhein-Westfalen, lots of spruce trees were forced to be cut due to insects, which resulted in a big increase in timbercuttings starting in 2017. These open spots cannot be replanted in a timely manner, so a higher flood potential remains for some time.