Born 1964 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. After an apprenticeship as forester, he studied forest sciences at ETH Zurich, and made his PhD in dendroecology at University of Basel. After 29 years at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, as head of the research unit “Forest Dynamics” and member of the WSL-directorate (13 yrs), he moved in 2022 to ETH Zurich as Adjunct Professor studying “Forest Growth and Global Change”.
His research focusses on forest ecosystems’ resilience with respect to climate change, biotic and abiotic stressors, natural disturbances, and legacy effects of past land-use on todays’ forests. He is developing integrated forest management concepts to balance the delivery of multiple ecosystem services including the promotion of biodiversity.
Andreas Rigling led major interdisciplinary projects on climate change impacts in the Alps and Russia. He received an award for outstanding inter- and transdisciplinary research from the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and is an honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He headed the forest research network (Nancy-Freiburg-Zurich) and serves on its Steering Committee. He is member of the scientific advisory boards of i) the Austrian Research Center for Forest, Natural Hazards and Landscape (BFW), ii) the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), iii) the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA), and iv) the Department of Forest Sciences at Bern University of Applied Sciences (HAFL). He serves on the Foundation Board of the Swiss Bergwaldprojekt and co-founded the SwissForestLab and the Daylight Academy. Rigling has published widely in international and national journals, contributed book chapters and leaflets, and edited books (e.g., How to Balance Biodiversity and Forestry), national reports (e.g., Swiss Forest Report 2015), and issues of scientific journals.
