488 research outputs found
A forest typology for monitoring sustainable forest management: The case of European Forest Types
Sustainable forest management (SFM) is presently widely accepted as the overriding objective for forest policy and practice.
Regional processes are in progress all over the world to develop and implement criteria and indicators of SFM. In continental
Europe, a set of 35 Pan-European indicators has been endorsed under the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of
Forests in Europe (MCPFE) to measure progress towards SFM in the 44 countries of the region. The formulation of seven
indicators (forest area, growing stock, age structure/diameter distribution, deadwood, tree species composition, damaging
agents, naturalness) requires national data to be reported by forest types. Within the vast European forest area the values
taken by these indicators show a considerable range of variation, due to variable natural conditions and anthropogenic
influences. Given this variability, it is very difficult to grasp the meaning of these indicators when taken out of their ecological
background. The paper discusses the concepts behind, and the requirements of, a classification more soundly ecologically
framed and suitable for MCPFE reporting than the three (un-informative) classes adopted so far: broadleaved forest,
coniferous forest, mixed broadleaved and coniferous forest. We propose a European Forest Types scheme structured into a
reasonably higher number of classes, that would improve the specificity of the indicators reported under the MCPFE process
and its understanding.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Armonizzazione degli inventari forestali per il monitoraggio della biodiversitĂ
Gli approcci selvicolturali orientati alla gestione sostenibile delle risorse forestali richiedono la disponibilitĂ
di informazioni di supporto qualitativamente e quantitativamente superiori rispetto a quelle richieste
da un approccio piĂą tradizionale finalizzato alla massimizzazione della produzione legnosa.
Negli ultimi anni la selvicoltura si è evoluta proponendo nuovi approcci orientati alla ottimizzazione
delle funzionalitĂ biologiche del sistema bosco. Parallelamente vari processi internazionali a livello Europeo
(Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe, Streamlining Biodiversity Indicators
by 2010) e globale (Montreal Process, Protocollo di Kyoto) richiedono la quantificazione di numerosi
indicatori attraverso i quali valutare il livello di sostenibilitĂ della gestione forestale e il valore
ecologico degli ecosistemi forestali. L’ampliata domanda di informazioni su aspetti ecologici e ambientali
delle foreste richiede un adattamento dei protocolli di rilevamento inventariale che ne costituiscono
la principale fonte informativa.
Il presente contributo è basato sui primi risultati dell’azione COST E43 “Harmonisation of National
forest inventories in Europe: techniques for common reporting” Working Group 3 che è impegnato nella
valutazione della capacitĂ di reporting armonizzato del livello di biodiversitĂ degli ecosistemi forestali
da parte degli inventari forestali nazionali. Dall’analisi dei metodi, delle definizioni e dei protocolli
adottati da 27 Paesi è possibile dedurre l’attuale capacità degli inventari forestali per la derivazione di
un gruppo di indicatori della biodiversitĂ forestale organizzati in sette aree tematiche (core variables):
tipologie forestali, legno morto, diversitĂ compositiva e strutturale, etĂ , naturalitĂ , vegetazione non forestale,
rinnovazione. Sulla base delle analisi realizzate nell’azione COST E43 viene qui presentato
l’inquadramento metodologico delle procedure di armonizzazione e la loro possibile applicazione finalizzata
alla derivazione di indicatori di biodiversitĂ forestale
Beware of contagion!
Landscape ecology starts from the assumption that diversity and spatial arrangement of ecosystem mosaics has ecological
implications and tries to understand the interactions between diversity and structure of large spatially heterogeneous areas
and its ecological functions. This approach implies effective use of earth observation techniques and geographic information
systems, enabling a global view of the landscape mosaics. Consequently, a large number of indices has been used to quantify
the structure of categorical maps as a surrogate of actual landscapes and correlate them to ecological processes. In particular,
the entropy-based contagion index has been extensively used to summarize the amount of clumping or fragmentation of
patches on raster categorical maps. However, despite its widespread application, the contagion index is very dependent on
pixel resolution. This effect may render it inadequate as a meaningful measure of landscape structure. To overcome this major
shortcoming, in this short note we propose to quantify pixel adjacency with a bivariate summary statistics that is not adversely
influenced by pixel resolution.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.co
European forest types and forest Europe SFM indicators: tools for monitoring progress on forest biodiversity conservation
Since 2003 the MCPFE-Forest Europe process has adopted a set of Pan-European Indicators that has
become a policy instrument to monitor, evaluate and report progress towards sustainable forest management
(SFM). Two new experimental tools have been introduced in the framework of the «State of Forests
and Sustainable Forest Management in Europe 2011»: (i) pilot reporting by 14 classes of European Forest
Types (EFTs) for a selection of quantitative SFM indicators; (ii) key parameters for monitoring progress for
all quantitative indicators.
The main aim of this paper is to discuss whether reporting by EFTs of key forest biodiversity-related
parameters can improve the way forest biodiversity conservation policy targets are addressed and evaluated
in Europe. Accordingly, data on SFM indicators for a sample of European countries (ranging from 6
to 28, depending on indicators) have been processed and analyzed in a pilot study using a question-driven
approach, so that information from monitoring could direct policy action.
The main findings show that:
– forest area has been significantly increasing (>0.2% per year) in the period 2000–2010; however,
annual changes in forest cover by EFTs reveal a polyedric picture at country level, in terms of gain
and loss of forest habitat dominated by native and introduced tree species;
– old even aged forests (>140 yrs) are fairly consistent (>5%) only in a few countries and limited to specific
EFTs;
– in naturally species-poor EFTs (e.g. Boreal forest, Alpine coniferous forest, Broadleaved evergreen forest)
single species stands cover from 15–100% of the total area, while in species rich EFTs (e.g. Mesophytic
deciduous forest, Thermophilous deciduous forest) the maximum share of single species is in
the order of 30%;
– deadwood amount ranges from 9 to 26 m3 ha 1, a value which is however far below natural reference
values found in European old growth forests (160 m3 ha 1).
Findings from this test demonstrate that reporting of key forest biodiversity-related parameters by
EFTs enables question-driven monitoring in many ways: (i) reporting by EFTs helps to interpret the variability
in the values taken by the indicators explicitly considering ecological differences between EFTs;
(ii) temporal trends in forest area can be interpreted in terms of expansion or loss of forest habitats dominated
by native and introduced tree species; (iii) progress in implementing biodiversity friendly strategies
(e.g. increasing share of old even aged forests, promotion of multispecies stands and accumulation of
deadwood) can be quantitatively evaluated against baselines.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.sciencedirect.co
Cambiamenti di copertura forestale e dell’uso del suolo nell’inventario dell’uso delle terre in Italia
Changes of forest coverage and land uses as assessed by the inventory of land uses in Italy. The paper presents
the IUTI program, a land use inventory of Italy, based on point sampling. It has been carried out to
support the National Carbon Sink Accounting Register and it was realized within the framework of the Italian
National Remote Sensing Plan managed by the Italian Ministry of Environment. IUTI has monitored the
land use and land use change and forestry in the last two decades over the country at the years 1990, 2000,
2008, adopting a tessellated stratified sampling scheme with about 1.2 million sample points on aerial orthophotos.
Following definitions, methods and inventory procedures, the main results are discussed. They
show the heavy changes affecting surface and distribution of the various classes for arable lands, forests and
urban areas.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.sisef.i
Investigation on Modulation-Based Straightness Measurement
The concept of a novel non-contacting technique for measuring straightness and its practical realization in a mechanical device are presented in this article. The device, called InPlanT, is based on the acquisition of the luminous signal retroreflected by a spherical glass target and impinged on a photodiode after mechanical modulation. The received signal is reduced to the sought straightness profile using dedicated software. The system was characterized with a high-accuracy CMM and the maximum error of indication was derived
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