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Use of SAR (radar) data

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Dynamics of biodiversity

[Finnish]
METLA
METLA Research

THE DYNAMICS OF BIODIVERSITY AND METHODS FOR ITS ASSESMENT

The objective of the project is to define concepts and to develop methods for measuring and monitoring forest biodiversity in large scale forest inventories. It is a joint project with National Forest Inventory, University of Joensuu and European Forest Institute.

The study started in 1994 and will last until the end of 1996, but it should be possible to apply the methods already in the 9th inventory which will start in 1996.

There are four subprojects in the study:

1. Development Of Methods For Measuring Biodiversity Based On Forest Characteristics, Habitat Occurrence and Statistical-Ecological Methods

The objective of the subproject is to define concepts and to develop methods for measuring and assessing biodiversity in national inventories. The methods are based on measurement of ordinary forest characteristics completed with additional measurements and information about the occurrence of small area rare biotops. Both national forest inventory (NFI) with plot sampling and standwise inventories are considered. Biodiversity measures from field observations will be derived.

Methods

• existing information on rare habitats is gathered to define keyvariables for inventory
• inventory methods will be developed in such a way that the measured characteristics give information on the forest as an ecosystem, i.e. information on all species; field tests of measurements are conducted to ensure the usability of the measurements
• use of remote sensing data for assessing the structure of forest stands are studied

State of art

1. to obtain more specific data on the diversity of habitats (biotopes) in Finnish forests
2. to get all the necessary data for management planning calculations
3. to obtain data for estimating the amount of dead trees.

1. Soil type
2. Description of vegetation in tree, shrub and field layers
3. Effect of other land use
4. Small habitats
5. Land use history
6. Measurements for dead wood of different level of decay

2. A Study of The Effect Of Stand Structure And Silvicultural Treatments On The Biodiversity And Occurrence Of Species

The objective is to study how stand stucture and silvicultural measures affect on the occurence of plant and animal species and to find (probability) models for plant and animal occurence as function of ordinary stand characteristics.

3. An Analysis Of The History Of Land Use During The Time Originating The Present Structure And Diversity Of Forests, I.E. From The Beginning Of 1800's

The objective is to clear out what was the biodiversity of forests before industrial time, i.e. 200 - 300 years ago. The old land use types and forest structure are studied by means of historical documents and field observations. The interesting land use types are settlement, slash-and-burn cultivation, making of tar and charcoal, pasturing, use of timber and silviculture.

4. A Study of the effect of forest fire frequencies and land-use history (slash-and-burn cultivation) on forest biodiversity

The overall goal is to study the structure of land use and forests before human impact in order to know the forest biodiversity at that time. In the dendrochronological approach, fire-scars present in live and dead trees will be analyzed in order to develop local forest fire histories covering the past c. 500 years for the chosen study site. Analysis of annually laminated lake sediment sequences will give information about natural fire frequencies and related vegetation changes from the past 2 - 3 millennia, i.e. for the time before any significant anthropogenic influence.

5. Coordidation to the similar international projects

The goal is to keep contact into other similar projects and to organize international meetings and workshops.