Meeting the challenges of process-oriented forest management

The article gives an overview on the drivers of the development of forest management approaches and summarizes and discusses the contributions of the presented Special Issue considering four thematic blocks: (1) background and consequences for a dynamic development of natural systems, (2) regional frame conditions and development of adapted assessment and evaluation approaches, (3) integration of natural processes in modeling and forest management concepts, and (4) tools for supporting cognitive processes and decision making and for transferring information to heterogeneous end-user groups. Conclusions are drawn on the challenges of a future-capable forest management. A concept of a process-oriented management is introduced that intends to consider better the dependence of forest management from societal and natural processes.