Das Projekt "Simulating and Mapping the Potential of Increasing CO2 and Changing Climate on the Vegetation cover: a Risk Assessment Study (NSFP31 project)" wird/wurde ausgeführt durch: Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft.In the present study we propose to perform an ecological risk assessment according to standardized procedures to generate probabilities of vegetation change in the Alpine region under given climate and CO2 scenarios. The results will be displayed graphically by means of various Swiss regions and ecosystems to the potential environmental changes. The level of detail is the plant population and the vegetation type; spatial resolution lies around 250 m. In a first step we will concentrate on forest ecosystems as well as on alpine and subalpine meadows. Raised and transition bogs, fens, open wetlands and dry meadows as well as some types of agricultural land will be included with second priority. The tools for the risk assessment study are (1) experimental results featuring the responses of C3 and C4 plants to a CO2 increase, (2) proxi data on past vegetation changes, (3) empirical phytosociological data relating the occurrence of vegetation types and plant species to environmental conditions, (4) a country-wide landscape ecological database on a 250 m grid, and (5) ready-to-use simulation packages allowing temporal and spatial projections of vegetation patterns under changing environmental conditions.