The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research is concerned with the use, development and protection of natural and urban spaces. The focus of our research is on solving problems to do with the responsible use of landscapes and forests and a prudent approach to natural hazards, especially those common in mountainous countries. WSL occupies a leading position internationally in these research areas. We also provide groundwork for sustainable environmental policies in Switzerland.

More information: https://www.wsl.ch/

80 datasets found

  • Survey data on public support for forest restoration in Europe based on evidence from Sweden and Spain

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset accompanies the article Factors influencing public support for forest restoration in Europe: Evidence from Sweden and Spain, published in the journal Ecosystems and...

    Last updated: September 10, 2025

    • XLS
    • forest-restoration
    • household-surveys
    • public-perceptions
    • socio-demographic-factors
    • spain
    • sweden
  • Ice nucleating particle concentrations active at -15 °C at Weissfluhjoch

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset contains number concentrations of ice-nucleating particles active at -15 °C observed at Weissfluhjoch during February and March 2019, as well as complementary data...

    Last updated: October 7, 2025

    • CSV
    • XLS
    • aerosol
    • backward-trajectories
    • clouds
    • ice-nucleation
    • raclets
  • Experts survey protective forest and combined extremes in Val Mesolcina

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset contains the results of a case study analysing the potential impacts of a compound meteorological extreme event on the protective forest in the Val Mesolcina. These...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • PDF
    • bark-beetles
    • compound-events
    • drought
    • extreme-events
    • forest-fire
    • natural-hazards
    • protection-forest
    • protective-effect
  • Herbivory mediates the response of below-ground food-webs to invasive grasses

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    Dataset supporting the paper "Herbivory mediates the response of below-ground food-webs to invasive grasses", published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

    The dataset refers to...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • TXT
    • SERVICE
    • CSV
    • XLS
    • ecosystem-functioning
    • grassland
    • herbivory
    • invasive-species
    • soil-biodiversity
  • Flow and tracer data for overland flow and topsoil interflow during rainfall simulation experiments in the Studibach catchment - Alptal - Switzerland

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    Description: This dataset comprises the time series of overland flow (OF) and topsoil interflow (TIF) discharge, and tracer concentrations during artificial rainfall simulation...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • alptal
    • celerity
    • overland-flow
    • preferential-flow
    • rainfall-simulation
    • runoff-plot
    • studibach
    • topsoil-interflow
    • tracers
    • velocity
  • Priority ranking for the conservation of all European bryophyte species - dataset

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset provides data on the occurrence of 672 European bryophyte species in European countries or territories. All species which are considered threatened or near threatened...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • bryophytes
    • conservation-priority
    • endemic
    • europe
    • range-size
    • rarity
    • red-list
  • Overland and topsoil interflow time series from the Studibach - summer 2022

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    The dataset comprises the time series of overland flow (OF) and topsoil interflow (TIF) discharges from 14 small runoff plots (1 x 3 m) over 27 rainfall events in 2022 across the...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • alptal
    • land
    • overland-flow
    • plot
    • rainfall
    • runoff
    • studibach
    • time-series
    • topsoil-interflow
  • Soil microbial diversity and multifunctionality across European biomes

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    The diversity and network complexity of prokaryotic and fungal communities and their relationships with soil multifunctionality (SMF) – an integrative index for C-, N- and...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • fungi
    • latitudinal-gradient
    • microbial-biodiversity
    • prokaryotes
    • soil-microbiome
    • soil-mulitfunctionality
  • Urban bird capture data with prey species and fungal community

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    We captured birds in urban parks and peri-urban forests in the cities of Lugano and Zurich. The urban sites were located in an urban forest (Lugano) and in a cemetery (Zurich), and...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • biodiversity
    • birds
    • fungal-pathogen
    • fungi
    • insects
    • urban
    • urban-biodiversity
    • urban-ecology
  • Urban bird predation on artificial caterpillars

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    We established our study sites in the cities of Basel, Lugano and Zurich, and their peri-urban forests. We characterised urban tree cover of each city using a rectangular grid with...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • biodiversity
    • biodiversity-experiment
    • birds
    • insect-herbivores
    • periurban
    • pest-invasion
    • urban
    • urban-biodiversity
    • urban-ecology
  • Urban bird predation on horse chestnut leaf miner Cameraria ohridella in three Swiss cities

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    We established our study sites in the cities of Basel, Lugano and Zurich. We characterised urban tree cover of each city using a rectangular grid with squares of 100x100 m. Within...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • biodiversity
    • birds
    • insect-herbivores
    • insects
    • larvae
    • plant-insect-interaction
    • urban-biodiversity
    • urban-ecology
  • Urban birds point counts data

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    The study area included the cities of Basel, Lugano and Zurich. The sampling design reflected four main city districts related to four categories of tree cover (Figure 1): 1)...

    Last updated: October 28, 2025

    • XLS
    • biodiversity
    • birds
    • environmental-gradients
    • periurban
    • spatially-distributed-sampling
    • urban
  • Steigerwald_Artificial_Dendrotelms

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset comprises environmental and insect larval data from 24 artificial dendrotelms (water-filled tree holes) created in beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) in six old-growth...

    Last updated: October 29, 2025

    • XLS
    • body-size
    • dendrotelms
    • diversity
    • european-beech
    • fagus-sylvatica
    • forest
    • germany
    • insects
    • invertebrates
    • metacommunity
    • old-growth-islands
    • steigerwald
    • stepping-stones
    • trems
    • water-filled-tree-holes
  • Dataset on PV Production in Snow Covered Mountains

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    Overview The SUNWELL Modelling Environment is a combination of data and code that models electricity production from satellite-derived irradiance data and other spatial data sets...

    Last updated: October 30, 2025

    • XLS
    • ZIP
    • albedo
    • energy
    • irradiance
    • mountain
    • photovoltaic
    • reflection
    • snow
  • Life at chilly temperatures - A collection of microorganisms from extreme habitats

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    The cold habitats of the Swiss Alps and the Arctic are undergoing change and are at risk of disappearing completely or partially in the future. Along with them, a poorly known...

    Last updated: November 13, 2025

    • XLS
    • active-layer
    • arctic
    • bacteria
    • biobank
    • biodiversity
    • collections
    • conservation
    • extreme-habitat
    • fungi
    • glaciers
    • permafrost
    • plastisphere
    • swiss-alps
  • Gao_Drought resistance and resilience of rhizosphere communities_13C-PLFA

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    Data of 13C-pulselabeling experiments in a young beech model ecosystem and a mature pine forest exposed to drought and rewetting. Data include microclimate during the experiment,...

    Last updated: November 13, 2025

    • XLS
    • biogeochemical-cycling
    • c13-labeling
    • drought
    • forest
    • microbial-biomass
    • plfa
  • C-N-P-Release Treeline

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    1. Chemical characteristics of litter layer sampled along elevation gradient across treeline ecotones in the Khibiny mountains (birch) and South Urals (spruce)
    2. Release of C-N-P...

    Last updated: November 13, 2025

    • XLS
    • biogeochemical-cycling
    • carbon-cycle
    • climate-change
    • enzymatic-activities
    • litter-decomposition
    • microbial-biomass
    • nutrient-fluxes
    • treeline-ecosystems
  • Data on interaction diversity in urban gardens

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    The data supports the paper "Local and landscape factors shape alpha and beta trophic interaction diversity in urban gardens". It provides: (1) the host-natural enemy interaction...

    Last updated: November 13, 2025

    • CSV
    • XLS
    • TXT
    • OCTET
    • bees
    • cavity-nesting
    • food-webs
    • host-enemy-interactions
    • hymenoptera
    • management-intensity
    • trap-nest
    • urban-ecology
    • urban-ecosystems
    • urbanization
    • wasps
    • zurich
  • Climarctic seasons

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    This dataset includes measurements of potential microbial functions (potential extracellular enzyme activities and microbial functional genes abundance) and soil physico-chemical...

    Last updated: November 13, 2025

    • XLS
    • arctic
    • greenhouse-gases
    • microbial-biodiversity
    • microbial-functions
    • soil
  • Spatial factors shape taxonomic and functional beta-diversity in water-filled tree holes in different biogeographical regions

    EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal
    Education, culture and sport

    These datasets and code support research on the community assemblage of aquatic macroinvertebrates in ephemeral microhabitats, specifically water-filled tree holes (WTH), in three...

    Last updated: November 26, 2025

    • XLS
    • CSV
    • SERVICE
    • beta-diversity
    • community-assembly
    • environmental-factors
    • functional-diversity
    • metacommunity
    • spatial-factors
    • taxonomic-diversity
    • water-filled-tree-holes