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Known to have been the scene of one of the greatest battles of history, the battlefield of Verdun (France) is now a vast forest area of 10,000 ha. Created in the aftermath of the World War One, the forest of Verdun is the result of a long process led by the state since the 1920s. Formerly used to reconstitute damaged land, the forest has many functions today, including that of a place of memory, which draw nearly 250,000 visitors each year. The forest of Verdun also constitutes a high environmental value site, featuring a large mosaic of environments and a remarkable range of flora and fauna. Thanks to a LiDAR mission conducted in 2013 within the “Foret d’exception®” project, nearly 115 km2 of woodland were surveyed, allowing the National Forests Office (ONF) to reconstruct 3-D topography of the battlefield and map hundreds of kilometers of trenches and thousands of shelters still visible despite the century that had passed since the war. The revegetated forest land cover has helped to maintain the underlying scars on the landscape. After outlining the major phases of restoration of the Verdun battlefield, this chapter explores the links between the geomorphological traces left by WWI and present-day biodiversity in the forest of Verdun. |
