Sustainable Forest Management Growth Models for Europe

About this book

There is a strong movement towards uneven-aged forest management based on the idea that such stands increase or at least maintain soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and improve stand resilience. This shift in forest management practice renders existing yield tables increasingly unreliable. Among potential alternatives are tree growth models, because they predict the growth of each tree within a forest stand. This book summarizes three years of work related to the topic, carried out as a joint effort of leading tree growth modellers across Europe together with forest companies. By means of nine specific examples it demonstrates the problem-solving potential of tree growth modeling theory as required by various end-user groups.

Contents

Concepts within Tree Growth Modeling.- End User Needs and Requirements.- Standardizing and Categorizing Tree Growth Models.- Description of Tree Growth Models Used.- Modeling Forest Regeneration.- Harvesting Rules and Modules for Predicting Commercial Timber Assortments.- Applications of Tree Growth Modeling in Decision Support for Sustainable Forest Management.- Evaluating Individual Tree Growth Models.- Modeling Regeneration in Even and Uneven-Aged Mixed Species Forests.- Evaluating Management Regimes and their Impact on Commercial Timber Supply Using an Individual-Tree Growth Model and Scenario Analysis.- A Decision Support System for Multi-Criteria Forest Estate Planning, Integrating a Forest Growth Simulator, Fuzzy-Inference Techniques and a Heuristic Optimisation Approach.- The Use of Tree Models for Silvicultural Decision Making.- The Use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Multi-Objective Optimisation in Forest Planning.- Modeling Cork Oak Production in Portugal.- Implementing Tree Growth Models in Slovakia.- Conversion of Norway Spruce: A Case Study in Denmark Based on Silvicultural Scenario Modeling.- Modeling the Growth of Quercus frainetto in Greece.- Closing.

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