Wind flow and landscape structure

Whilst wind flow in forested landscapes has long been studied at a homogeneous station-scale, current trends are towards taking into account increasingly high levels of heterogeneity and ever-wider spatial scales, enablingaddress a wide range of real-world situations, characterised by the presence of forest edges, gaps, clearings, terrain, etc. Recent developments in atmospheric modelling and biomechanical approaches are opening up new avenues of research in this context. Following a brief overview of recently developed modelling tools, this paper describes some findings on flow in edge zones, the influence of landscape fragmentation and the impact of terrain on canopy-atmosphere interactions. A number of avenues for future research are highlighted.