Storm warning—150 years of damage to Swiss forests
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 - 08:01
in Earth & Climate
Nidwalden, Fribourg, Aargau, Zug and Zürich. These are, in descending order, the cantons whose forests were worst hit by the winter storms that battered Switzerland between 1865 and 2014. Tilo Usbeck, a researcher, studied and compared 26 storms. "In 150 years, there have been well over 26 storms that damaged forests", he explains. "However, to ensure that I had sufficient data I took into account those storms that felled over 70,000 m3 of trees. Storms have to cause a certain amount of damage to be included in cantonal and federal records."