Forest Responses to Beaver Dam Construction in Bavarian Forest National Park Over Space and Time
The topic is also suitable for:
- GEM students in track 1 – GEM for Urban-Rural Interactions.
- GEM students in track 3 – GEM for Ecosystems & Natural Resources.
Beavers are often referred to as “ecosystem engineers” because their dam-building activity reshapes river corridors, alters local hydrology, and creates mosaics of ponds, wetlands, and regenerating forest patches. In protected areas, such as the Bavarian Forest National Park, these processes can significantly influence forest structure, biodiversity, carbon storage, and resilience to climate-related stressors, including droughts and heatwaves. Beaver dams raise local water levels, expand saturated areas, and can lead to tree mortality through prolonged flooding, followed by the establishment of wetland vegetation and the regeneration of shrubs or young trees. Over time, this creates a fine-grained pattern of habitat types that may increase overall landscape heterogeneity and ecological resilience.
Despite increasing recognition of the ecological importance of beavers in Central Europe, there is still limited quantitative understanding of how forest ecosystems respond to beaver dam construction at landscape scales and over longer time periods. Bavarian Forest National Park offers a unique opportunity to study these processes in a relatively natural setting, where forestry operations are restricted, and long-term monitoring data and high-quality remote sensing products are available.
This MSc topic focuses on characterising and explaining forest responses to beaver dam construction over space and time. By combining satellite data, existing park datasets, and spatial modelling, the project will shed light on how beaver-created wetlands and altered hydrology influence forest structure, productivity, and successional pathways. The outcomes can inform park management on the role of beavers in supporting biodiversity, water retention, and climate adaptation strategies, as well as provide a methodological framework for monitoring similar “rewilding” processes in other protected areas.
This study aims to quantify how beaver dam construction alters forest structure, and vegetation dynamics in Bavarian Forest National Park through space and time. The student will (i) map the spatial distribution and temporal development of beaver dams and associated ponds along selected river and stream networks, and (ii) assess forest responses in terms of canopy structure, species composition, productivity, and disturbance patterns in areas influenced by beaver activity compared to nearby control areas.
High-resolution remote sensing data (e.g. Sentinel-2, LiDAR, and available aerial imagery) and existing thematic maps from the park authority will be used to detect and characterise beaver-modified zones (flooded stands, deadwood formation, regenerating patches, new wetland vegetation). Time-series analyses will be applied to spectral indices (e.g. NDVI, EVI, moisture indices) to evaluate temporal changes before and after dam establishment. Where available, field or park monitoring data (e.g. vegetation plots, forest inventories, water level or flow measurements) will be integrated to validate the remote sensing results.
Different analytical approaches (e.g. change detection, spatial statistics, and machine learning classification) will be explored to (i) separate beaver-driven changes from background forest dynamics, and (ii) identify key environmental controls (topography, distance to streams, forest type) that explain where and how beaver dams most strongly affect forest conditions.
- Zhang, W., Hu, B., Brown, G., & Meyer, S. (2024). Beaver pond identification from multi-temporal and multi-sourced remote sensing data. Geo-spatial Information Science, 27(4), 953-967.
- Fairfax, E., Whipple, A., Wheaton, J. M., Osorio, B., Miller, J., Kirksey, K., ... & Jordan, C. E. (2024). Impacts of beaver dams on riverscape burn severity during megafires in the Rocky Mountain region, western United States.
- Stringer, A. P., & Gaywood, M. J. (2016). The impacts of beavers Castor spp. on biodiversity and the ecological basis for their reintroduction to Scotland, UK. Mammal review, 46(4), 270-283.