Preliminary results of the Slovakian national project regarding carbon dioxide storage in underground spaces

AbstractThe Slovak republic territory in spite of its extremely complicated geological pattern affords some possibilities for potential storage of carbon dioxide. The aim of the Slovakian National project “Quantitative parameters selected geological structures suitable for CO2 storage” is to find convenient places for this purpose in regional aquifers, and depleted hydrocarbon deposits. Besides, of these geological rock complexes–mostly ultramafic rocks - have been investigated for purposes of mineral carbonation of CO2. The first attempt about fate of CO2 in brine (regional aquifer) has been modelled from geochemical point of view.. From the preliminary results of the all above - mentioned options is obvious that for the process of the practical activation of CCS technologies many collisions with hydrogeological, geothermal and land use planning activities and regulations will be necessary to solve

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

How sensitive are ecosystem services in European forest landscapes to silvicultural treatment?

While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Computer Simulation of the GSM Signal Availability for Data Transmission on the Territory of the Forest Enterprise

The work deals with the creation of digital maps of the intensity of GSM/EDGE signal on the territory of the Forest Enterprise at the Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia. Simulation of electromagnetic radiation intensity was calculated using the prediction program TEMS Parcell, based on technical data of transmitters and receivers, as well as attenuation due to the environment. Calculated values were verified in field measurements by means of testing apparatus placed in the measuring vehicle. The output vector layer contains areas categorized according to the suitability of signal intensity for field use with data or voice services

Forest management scenarios modelling with morphological analysis – examples taken from Podpoľanie and Kysuce

Scenarios modelling offers to forest management an option how to envision complex future associated with various natural, social, or economic uncertainties. The challenge is what modelling method to choose as many methodological approaches to scenario building exists. Morphological analysis is a basic modelling method for structuring and analysing a whole set of relationships existing in multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable, and complex topics. Especially, its application is relevant when abstract policy or market-driven challenges need to be investigated. In this study, we demonstrated the usefulness of the morphological analysis with an example case taken from forest management in Slovakia. The use of the method has enabled, from a number of uncertain futures, to identify three possible, plausible and consistent future scenarios of possible forest management direction in the regions of Podpoľanie and Kysuce. Additionally, the future scenario modelling as prognostic method of qualitative research supported by quantitative models or forestry DSS could introduce participation and more dimensions into forest management modelling. Thus, the future scenarios modelling offers new methodological possibilities to how to deal with increasing uncertainties associated with increasing demands for various ecosystem services or negative impacts of climate change, that forest management in Slovakia will face in the near future

Processing Chain for Estimation of Tree Diameter from GNSS-IMU-Based Mobile Laser Scanning Data

Mobile laser scanning (MLS) is a progressive technology that has already demonstrated its ability to provide highly accurate measurements of road networks. Mobile innovation of the laser scanning has also found its use in forest mapping over the last decade. In most cases, existing methods for forest data acquisition using MLS result in misaligned scenes of the forest, scanned from different views appearing in one point cloud. These difficulties are caused mainly by forest canopy blocking the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal and limited access to the forest. In this study, we propose an approach to the processing of MLS data of forest scanned from different views with two mobile laser scanners under heavy canopy. Data from two scanners, as part of the mobile mapping system (MMS) Riegl VMX-250, were acquired by scanning from five parallel skid trails that are connected to the forest road. Misaligned scenes of the forest acquired from different views were successfully extracted from the raw MLS point cloud using GNSS time based clustering. At first, point clouds with correctly aligned sets of ground points were generated using this method. The loss of points after the clustering amounted to 33.48%. Extracted point clouds were then reduced to 1.15 m thick horizontal slices, and tree stems were detected. Point clusters from individual stems were grouped based on the diameter and mean GNSS time of the cluster acquisition. Horizontal overlap was calculated for the clusters from individual stems, and sufficiently overlapping clusters were aligned using the OPALS ICP module. An average misalignment of 7.2 mm was observed for the aligned point clusters. A 5-cm thick horizontal slice of the aligned point cloud was used for estimation of the stem diameter at breast height (DBH). DBH was estimated using a simple circle-fitting method with a root-mean-square error of 3.06 cm. The methods presented in this study have the potential to process MLS data acquired under heavy forest canopy with any commercial MMS