Zustand und Entwicklung siedlungsnaher Wälder – Ergebnisse aus dem LFI
State and development of forests close to settlements – results from the NFI For more than 30 years, the national forest inventory (NFI) has been reporting on the state and development of the Swiss forest and its services. Here, for the first time on the topic of “urban forest”, focusing on the forests in the Swiss lowlands, where all urban centers are located. Due to missing definitions we classified the forest according to household equivalents in the vicinity of NFI plots. The forest was classified as either close to settlements (urban) or far from settlements. Using indicators, we compared both categories in order to answer the following questions: 1) How common are forests close to settlements? 2) How do forests close to settlements and far from settlements differ? 3) Is there a potential for conflict of use? 4) Which developments could be observed in relation to forest perception in the last 20 years? 29% of the forest in the lowlands is close to settlements. Five out of ten indicators on forest provision do not differ between both forest categories. Differences occur in relation to the degree of mixture and forest structure. Furthermore, close to settlement forests have more forest roads, recreational facilities and a primary “recreation” function. Regardless of their primary function, forests close to settlements are more intensively used for recreation. Following the NFI model on nature provision for recreation, the forest area with high nature provision has increased in the last 20 years, for all forests. The results indicate that both forest categories are quite similar and are managed in a similar way. Due to the intensive recreational use of lowland forests close to settlements, a certain conflict potential between recreationalists and forest owners is given, posing a challenge for forest managers.