Wood availability and export pressure associated with major forest disturbances: A comparative analysis of industrial roundwood flows in Slovenia and Czechia

Forest disturbances increasingly generate temporary surpluses of salvage wood, creating pressure on forest-wood value chains and timber markets. This study compares disturbance-related industrial roundwood flows in Slovenia and Czechia using annual FAOSTAT Forestry Production and Trade data for 2010–2024. Industrial roundwood production was used as the main indicator of market wood availability, while trade data were used to quantify net export pressure, export unit values, domestic market utilisation, and domestic absorption. Differences between pre-disturbance and disturbance-response periods were tested using Welch tests, Wilcoxon tests, and country-by-period interaction models with robust standard errors. Industrial roundwood production increased significantly during disturbance-response periods in both countries, by 68.8% in Czechia and 77.2% in Slovenia. Net export pressure increased from 14.9% to 43.6% in Czechia and from 30.7% to 50.0% in Slovenia. Export unit values declined from 91.4 to 63.9 USD/m³ in Czechia and from 93.6 to 82.0 USD/m³ in Slovenia. Domestic market utilisation decreased from 85.1% to 56.4% in Czechia and from 69.3% to 50.0% in Slovenia, indicating that apparent domestic consumption did not increase proportionally with industrial roundwood production. These results indicate that disturbance-related wood availability was associated with stronger export orientation, lower average export unit values, and lower domestic market utilisation. The pattern may reflect the combined influence of disturbance-related supply shocks, domestic absorption limits, timber quality and assortment mismatches, logistics, and external market demand. The findings highlight the importance of processing capacity, storage, transport logistics, sorting, market coordination, and export-market structure for forest-sector resilience under increasing disturbance regimes.