What drives deforestation in Switzerland?
Deforestation is prohibited in Switzerland, as in most European countries. Nevertheless, exemptions from the ban on forest clearing may be granted, mostly for infrastructure purposes (e.g. related to transportation, energy, water construction/supply, quarry sites, etc.). However, surprisingly little is known about the drivers of deforestation outside of the tropics and developing countries, where agriculture may not be the main driver.
In Switzerland, forest clearances are defined as a repurposing of forest land for non-forestry purposes. These land-use changes do not necessarily have to lead to (detectable) changes in land cover. Also, agriculture is largely prevented as a reason for forest clearances.
The article external page“Identifying drivers of forest clearances in Switzerland” compares similarities and differences in drivers (1) across five different regions, (2) using traditional, robust, and spatial regression methods, and (3) also contrasts statistical significance with variable importance. This multi-objective approach helped not only to uncover patterns but also to judge the sensitivity, reliability and relevance of our findings.
We observed that especially land-use related factors (i.e. landscape metrics) are pertinent predictors for forest clearances, while the effects of socio-economic factors turned out to be very small. Further, we found evidence of a pronounced spatial clustering of forest clearances. This also acts as an objective additional justification for using spatial regression methods able to account for spatial autocorrelation.