The continuous field view of representing forest geographically: from cartographic representation towards improved management planning

Enhanced vizualization leads to better forest management solutions. This paper discusses the application of numerical remote sensing and geographic information systems to forest inventory. Natural phenomena usually exhibit both continuous and discrete behaviour. Discrete models have been used since the inception of aerial photography, long before the introduction of mathematical statistics, computers or remote sensing but today, forest attributes can also be described as continuous surfaces. This paper briefly presents the uses and limitations of a popular non-parametric estimator (the k-nearest neighbour): it improves visual representation, and provides a better input for GIS based modelling, thus facilitating natural resource inventory and management planning. However, in many countries, the operational forest management planning approaches still require some discretisation of continuous surfaces into areal units, corresponding to virtual –or dynamic- forest compartments

The continuous field view of representing forest geographically: from cartographic representation towards improved management planning

Enhanced vizualization leads to better forest management solutions. This paper discusses the application of numerical remote sensing and geographic information systems to forest inventory. Natural phenomena usually exhibit both continuous and discrete behaviour. Discrete models have been used since the inception of aerial photography, long before the introduction of mathematical statistics, computers or remote sensing but today, forest attributes can also be described as continuous surfaces. This paper briefly presents the uses and limitations of a popular non-parametric estimator (the k-nearest neighbour): it improves visual representation, and provides a better input for GIS based modelling, thus facilitating natural resource inventory and management planning. However, in many countries, the operational forest management planning approaches still require some discretisation of continuous surfaces into areal units, corresponding to virtual –or dynamic- forest compartments

Urban Vegetation Mapping using Hyperspectral Imagery and Spectral Library

International audienceThe development and expansion of urbanized areas around the cities, brings new challenging issues about the organization, the monitoring, and the distribution of green spaces within the cities (e.g. grass, trees, shrubs, etc.). Indeed, these spaces brings better life quality for population and preserve biodiversity. This study, aims to 1) investigate the feasibility of urban vegetation mapping by species using multiband imagery and spectral libraries and to 2) determine at what scale the mapping is reliable (e.g. trees scale, group of trees scale, high/short vegetation scale)

Forest owner is more than her goal: a qualitative typology of Lithuanian owners

In contrast to quantitative surveys up to date, this study employs in-depth interviews and qualitative analyses aiming to provide detailed contextualized portrayals of private forest owners (PFOs) in Lithuania, where forest ownership underwent crucial changes in the last two decades. We scrutinized narrations of 18 owners, focusing on the background and goals of forest possession, actually applied management practices and informants' future plans. Content analysis of the narrations revealed three classes of goals: ideational rationale, i.e. immaterial justification for owning and managing forest, financial goals referring to monetary benefits from selling forest products and own material use for household needs. Reported practices differ widely among PFOs, ranging from largely absent management to intensive silvicultural regimes. Syntheses of each informant's goals and practices enabled discerning four types of PFOs. Forest Businessmen typically own largest estates (>100 ha) and regard forest as an investment to get long-term financial benefits; they resort to forest management for timber and often intend to enlarge their possessions. Household Foresters primarily use timber for own needs, regularly applying selective tree cutting; such forestry results in frequent but small-scale management interventions. Passive Forest Lovers aspire for recreational or environmental values, being largely uninterested in timber harvesting. Ad Hoc Owners usually are small scale, have vague goals and rarely engage in forest management. The study concludes with discussing policy implications of the identified diversity of PFOs

Visible and Near-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging to Describe some Properties of Conventionally and Ecologically Grown Vegetables

International audienceRecently, a lot of interest has been paid on the usage of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) as a technique to evaluate the quality of industrially processed food products. Ecologically grown food products usually have larger prices thus the consumers may expect more sophisticated solutions to guaranty the quality of products they purchase. The HSI is expected to reduce the time and costs spent in samples processing as it can provide a rapid, non-destructive and reagent-less analysis of investigated samples. This study discusses the opportunities to predict the amount of nitrates (NO3) as well as pH, reduction potential (ORP), and electrical conductivity (σ) of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) and carrots (Daucus carota var. sativa) using HSI approach. Discrimination ability between the ecologically and conventionally grown carrots was also investigated using HSI approach

Trend in Ambient Ozone and an Attempt to Detect Its Effect on Biota in Forest Ecosystem. Step I of Lithuanian Studies

The presented study aimed to explore the relationships between ambient ozone (O3) and tree defoliation, specific diversity, and abundance of soil microarthropods, stream macroinvertebrates, and small mammals (mainly rodents) in order to test the hypothesis that changes in the considered objects of the forest ecosystem could be related to changes in ambient O3, concentration of which is below critical level. The observations were carried out from 1994 at three integrated monitoring stations. The obtained data revealed that only peak O3 concentrations (from 125–215 μg·m-3) had significant effect on changes in the considered components of forest biota

Forest biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and wood production: modeling synergies and trade-offs for ten forest landscapes across Europe

Original ResearchEurope’s forests provide vital habitat for biodiversity and essential ecosystem services whose provision must be sustained or enhanced over the coming century. However, the potential to secure or increase forest ecosystem services, while securing the habitat requirements of taxa remains unclear, especially within the context of uncertain climate and socio-economic developments. To tease out the associated trade-offs and synergies, we used 10 case study landscapes within nine countries throughout Europe. Starting with the current status of the forests in the case study landscapes, we simulated forest development 100 years into the future. Simulations were embedded in three combined climate and socio-economic frame scenarios based on global and European policies which varied in their climate change mitigation efficiency. Scenarios were translated into country specific projections of climate variables, and resultant demands for wood products. Forest management regimes were projected to vary in response to these scenarios at local scales. The specific combinations of alternative forest management practices were based on parallel research and input from local forest stakeholders. For each case study, a specific forest growth simulator was used. In general, the climate scenarios applied did not cause fundamentally different ecosystem service outputs at the case study level. Our results revealed almost no reduction in outcomes for biodiversity indicators with an increase in wood production, and in some cases synergistic results occurred when diversity was actively promoted as part of the management concept. Net carbon uptake was not strongly correlated with biodiversity, indicating that biodiversity-friendly forest management doesn’t need to curtail carbon sequestration. Notably, we obtained heterogeneous results for the relation between sustainable wood production and net carbon uptake. Most scenarios resulted in a more or less reduced net carbon uptake over the long term, often due to stand age class distribution shifts. Levels of sustainable wood production varied widely during the simulation period, from significant increases (Sweden, Lithuania) to minor changes (Slovakia, Turkey) and slight decreases (Ireland, Netherlands). We place our results within the larger context of European forest policy and the challenges of simulating and contrasting forest biodiversity and the ecosystem services that societies depend on outcomes for biodiversity indicators with an increase in wood production, and in some cases synergistic results occurred when diversity was actively promoted as part of the management concept. Net carbon uptake was not strongly correlated with biodiversity, indicating that biodiversity-friendly forest management doesn’t need to curtail carbon sequestration. Notably, we obtained heterogeneous results for the relation between sustainable wood production and net carbon uptake. Most scenarios resulted in a more or less reduced net carbon uptake over the long term, often due to stand age class distribution shifts. Levels of sustainable wood production varied widely during the simulation period, from significant increases (Sweden, Lithuania) to minor changes (Slovakia, Turkey) and slight decreases (Ireland, Netherlands). We place our results within the larger context of European forest policy and the challenges of simulating and contrasting forest biodiversity and the ecosystem services that societies depend oninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Protection gaps and restoration opportunities for primary forests in Europe

Aims: Primary forests are critical for forest biodiversity and provide key ecosystem services. In Europe, these forests are particularly scarce and it is unclear whether they are sufficiently protected. Here we aim to: (a) understand whether extant primary forests are representative of the range of naturally occurring forest types, (b) identify forest types which host enough primary forest under strict protection to meet conservation targets and (c) highlight areas where restoration is needed and feasible. Location: Europe. Methods: We combined a unique geodatabase of primary forests with maps of forest cover, potential natural vegetation, biogeographic regions and protected areas to quantify the proportion of extant primary forest across Europe\u27s forest types and to identify gaps in protection. Using spatial predictions of primary forest locations to account for underreporting of primary forests, we then highlighted areas where restoration could complement protection. Results: We found a substantial bias in primary forest distribution across forest types. Of the 54 forest types we assessed, six had no primary forest at all, and in two-thirds of forest types, less than 1% of forest was primary. Even if generally protected, only ten forest types had more than half of their primary forests strictly protected. Protecting all documented primary forests requires expanding the protected area networks by 1,132 km2 (19,194 km2 when including also predicted primary forests). Encouragingly, large areas of non-primary forest existed inside protected areas for most types, thus presenting restoration opportunities. Main conclusion: Europe\u27s primary forests are in a perilous state, as also acknowledged by EU\u27s “Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.” Yet, there are considerable opportunities for ensuring better protection and restoring primary forest structure, composition and functioning, at least partially. We advocate integrated policy reforms that explicitly account for the irreplaceable nature of primary forests and ramp up protection and restoration efforts alike

Decision support tools and strategies to simulate forest landscape evolutions integrating forest owner behaviour: a review from the case studies of the European Project, INTEGRAL

For forest sustainability and vulnerability assessment, the landscape scale is considered to be more and more relevant as the stand level approaches its known limitations. This review, which describes the main forest landscape simulation tools used in the 20 European case studies of the European project “Future-oriented integrated management of European forest landscapes” (INTEGRAL), gives an update on existing decision support tools to run landscape simulation from Mediterranean to boreal ecosystems. The main growth models and software available in Europe are described, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches are discussed. Trades-offs between input efforts and output are illustrated. Recommendations for the selection of a forest landscape simulator are given. The paper concludes by describing the need to have tools that are able to cope with climate change and the need to build more robust indicators for assessment of forest landscape sustainability and vulnerability.The INTEGRAL project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 282887. http://www. integral-project.eu/. Moreover, financial support by the Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the 7th Framework Programme of the EC under the Trees4Future project (No. 284181) for conducting the research is gratefully acknowledged. This research has also received funding from the European Union H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 691149 (SuFoRun). Researcher Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo was supported by a “Ramon y Cajal” research contract from the MINECO (Ref. RYC-2013-14262) and has received funding from CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. This paper could be achieved thanks to support of EFIATLANTIC donors: Conseil regional d’Aquitaine, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la forêt