Importance of Forest Ecosystem Services to Secondary School Students: a Case from the North-West Slovenia

Background and Purpose: Forest managers are facing challenges in balancing the demands for forest social services raised by the general public and forest productive services. Knowing local people’s attitudes, taking into account their needs and respecting their opinions, introducing social aspects should become a management priority to ensure success of conservational activities and sustainable use of natural resources. This study investigates the attitudes of one category from the general public which is secondary school students related to forest ecosystem services in order to determine and present a useful basis for further research of people’s attitudes towards forests and forest management. Materials and Methods: In 2013 and 2014 410 Slovenian students from secondary schools in the Vipava valley and Goriška area in northwestern Slovenia completed a questionnaire testing for the influence of gender and frequency of forest experiences on attitudes to forest ecosystem services. Students’ attitudes to forest ecosystem services were investigated via 15 statements about provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. The gathered data was analysed by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), using ANOVA, Tukey post-hoc test, Spearman’s product moment correlation and the nonparametric Mann–Whitney (U) test. Results and Conclusions: Students acknowledged the high benefits of ecosystem services provided by forests, though not all forest ecosystem services hold the same importance to secondary school students. Students placed the highest importance on supporting services; especially on the value of forests as habitats for animal and plant species. Also the importance of forests for clean air production was emphasized. Students with more frequent experiences in the forest environment placed more importance on cultural services as well as regulating services, especially for clean water and air production. Gender differences were not significant, other than in the valuation of the forest as a place for relaxation and reflection, where female students were more supportive than male students

KLASIFIKACIJA VRSTA DRVEĆA U PRIRODNOJ URBANOJ ŠUMI KORISTEĆI WORLDVIEW-2 SATELITSKE SNIMKE I LIDAR

A detailed tree species inventory is needed to sustainably manage a natural, mixed, heterogeneous urban forest. An object-based image analysis of a combination of high-resolution WorldView-2 multi-spectral satellite imagery and airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) data was tested for classification of individual tree crowns of five different tree species. The model training data were obtained from a systematic grid of plots in the forest. In total, 304 coniferous (Norway spruce and Scots pine) and 270 deciduous (European beech, Sessile and Pedunculate oak (combined), and Sweet chestnut) trees were identified in the field. The classification was performed by applying the support vector machine model. An accuracy assessment was performed by calculating a confusion matrix to evaluate the accuracy of the classification output by comparing the classification result to the independent test data. The overall accuracy of the classification was 58 %.Osnovni zadatak gospodarenja šumama je provedba inventure drveća. Posebno se to odnosi na blisko prirodi gospodarene urbane šume. Cilj ovog istraživanja je provjeriti može li se metoda analize snimaka (tzv. object-based image analysis – OBIA) kombinacijom WorldView-2 multispektralnih satelitskih snimaka visoke prostorne rezulocije i laserskog skeniranja (LiDAR-a) koristiti za uspješnu klasifikaciju krošanja pojedinačnih stabala različitih vrsta drveća u prirodnim, mješovitim i heterogenim urbanim šumama u Ljubljani (Slika 1).Terenska klasifikacija vrsta drveća provedena je postavljanjem mreže kružnih ploha (100x100 m) veličine od 2000 m2. Na svakoj od 332 plohe, registrirana su stabla iz dominantnog i kodominantnog sloja drveća. Ukupno je za analizu izdvojeno 574 stabala, od čega 304 stabla četinjača (obična smreka, obični bor) i 270 stabala listača (obična bukva, hrast lužnjak i kitnjak, pitomi kesten). Polovica uzorkovanih stabala tj. njihovih krošanja korišteno je kao probni set podataka u nadgledanoj klasifikaciji, dok je druga polovica uzorkovanih stabala korištena za ocjenu točnosti provedene klasifikacije (tzv. testni podaci).Za klasifikaciju su korištene WorldView-2 multispektralne satelitske snimke (8-kanalne), tzv. ‘Red-Edge’ normalizirani razlikovni vegetacijski indeks (NDVI) izračunat pomoću rubnog crvenog i crvenog spektralnog kanala te digitalni model krošanja (tzv. Digital Canopy Model – DCM) dobiven iz LiDAR podataka. Prostorna rezolucija WorldView-2 satelitskih snimaka iznosila je 1 m.Klasifikacija je provedena pomoću Exelis ENVI 5 kompjuterskog programa, primjenjujući tzv. pomoćni vektorski model. Preciznost procjene izračunata je na temelju izračunate matrice pogreške, uspoređujući rezultate klasifikacije s testnim podacima. Također je provedena analiza glavnih komponenata, koja je pokazala da je najveća varijabilnost (oko 85 %) objašnjena pomoću rubnog crvenog spektralnog kanala (705–745 nm), bližeg infracrvenog kanala – 1 (770–895 nm) te bližeg infracrvenog spektralnog kanala – 2 (860–1040 nm) WorldView-2 snimaka.Metoda analize snimaka (OBIA) kombinacijom WorldView-2 satelitskih snimaka I LiDAR podataka korištena u ovom istraživanju pokazala je obećavajuće rezultate pri klasifikaciji vrsta drveća u gustim, mješovitim i heterogenim prirodnim urbanim šumama, u kojima često dolazi do isprepletanja krošanja. Najpouzdaniji dobiveni rezultati odnose se na razlikovanje četinjača i listača. Kod sastojina s gustim krošnjama, posebice kod listača kod kojih je teško napraviti delineaciju krošanja, otežana je i manualna i automatska delineacija (segmentacija) krošanja. Ovo istraživanje novi je dokaz kako se primjenom podataka dobivenih metodama daljinskih istraživanja pruža mogućnost uštede u vremenu pri inventarizaciji vrsta drveća.Ukupna preciznost identifikacije iznosila je 58 %, a Kappa koeficijent je iznosio 0.421 (Tablica 4). Za svaku vrstu drveća izračunata je preciznost na osnovi razlike između preciznosti koju navodi proizvođač (postotak točno identificiranih piksela u odnosu na ukupan broj piksela na probnim podacima) i preciznosti korisnika. Rezultati tako dobivene preciznosti iznosili su 80 % za smreku, 70 % za hrastove lužnjak i kitnjak, 50 % za obični bor, 38 % za bukvu, te manje od 1 % za pitomi kesten