Process-based models open the way to useful predictions of the future growth rate of forests and provide a means of assessing the probable effects of variations in climate and management on forest productivity. As such they have the potential to overcome the limitations of conventional forest growth and yield models, which are based on mensuration data and assume that climate and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will be the same in the future as they are now.

This book discusses the basic physiological processes that determine the growth of plants, the way they are affected by...