The article deals with the integration of multi-resource data into the comprehensive ecological monitoring system. Sustainable management of forests and other renewable resources requires holistic knowledge and an enormous amount of data. Due to many benefits originating from forests, management activities must be continuously supervised on the relevant spatial levels. Many advantages are offered by geographic information systems, allowing a simultaneous combining of remotely sensed, map and other attribute data. The objectives of the project were 1) to study preserved forested landscapes and develop such models for environmental management, that would help foresters and other planners to manage their region on the basis of sustainability and given ecological condition, 2) to improve management on the forest-strata level by the integration of orthophotos and various field data, and 3) to access tree and forest stand conditions and their trends. The employed monitoring system contained the analyses of land cover and land use, forest stands characteristics and of growing stock, forest functions inventory (wildlife habitats, protection function, biodiversity, natural and cultural heritage) and inventory of the environmental quality. The regional level was analysed through the Landsat image data, forest GIS and other data. Several computer algorithms were used for the rough land-use classification, assessment of landscape's patchiness, identification of the spatial changes, etc. More profound analysis, based on digital orthophoto was involved in the second strata's level, when detailed re-examination of the strata types were carried out. All photo and forest field data were finally calibrated by data and attributes from the permanent plots.
The study is being continued. Further research is focused towards 1) objective evaluation of the forest functions, 2) development of the ecological modelling and input-output analysis and 3) enriching the research by studying various indicators that will ease an evaluation of such landscapes from various points of view.
Key words: ecological monitoring, GIS, remote sensing, othophoto, forest management.
Correspondence: Milan Hocevar, Slovenian Forestry Institute, Vecna pot 2, 61000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
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