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Forest Naturalness: Criterion for Decision Support in Designation and Management of Protected Forest Areas

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Abstract

The article analyses the possibilities of developing an integrated indicator and a model of the assessment of forests naturalness using the data from the database of mountainous spruce forests situated in the Western Carpathians of Slovakia. The article presents two variants of such a model, one based on discriminant analysis, while the second one using an additive approach. The analysis of the data from mountainous spruce forests revealed significant indicators of forest naturalness degree: the arithmetic mean of the ratio between crown length and tree height, the deadwood volume, the coverage of grasses, the coverage of mosses and lichens, and the aggregation index. In addition, the coefficient of variation of tree diameters was included in the final model, since its presence in the model had a positive influence on the correctness of the classification of the forest naturalness degree. The correctness of the classification of the proposed discriminant model was 74.5%. For the additive model, the ranges of the values of the integrated indicator were defined for every degree of forest naturalness by taking into account the error ranges of the arithmetic mean values and the percentiles of the values in individual degrees of forest naturalness. The overall correctness of the classification with the additive model was 63.4%. In the second step, the scheme how to apply the classification model of the forest naturalness degree in the decision-making process of designating as a forest protected areas was proposed. In this scheme, the degree of forest naturalness is considered as a basic criterion for the determination of nature-conservation value of forest ecosystems. As further decision-making criteria we identified the possibility to restore, or the possibility to improve the naturalness of less natural forest ecosystems, which are designated as protected; the occurrence of the endangered species; and the occurrence of other natural values.

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Acknowledgments

This publication was written thanks to the financial support of OP Research and development for the project “Centre of Excellence for Adaptive forest ecosystems” (ITMS: 26220120006) co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund. The authors express their gratitude to the whole scientific and technical staff of Forest Research Institute in Zvolen, who participated in the collection of data in permanent research plots established within the scope of the project “Research of the methods of mountain forest management following the principle of sustainable development” in the years 1999–2002. We mainly acknowledge Ing. Jozef Vladovič, PhD. and Ing. Vladimír Šebeň, PhD. for their cooperation in the selection and the primary classification of selected permanent research plots into degrees of forest naturalness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Forest Centre, Forest Research Institute, T.G. Masaryka 24, Zvolen, 96092, Slovakia

    Martin Moravčík, Zuzana Sarvašová & Matej Schwarz

  2. Forest Research, Inventory and Monitoring (FORIM), Železná Breznica, Slovakia

    Ján Merganič

  3. Department of Forest Management, Faculty of Forestry, Wildlife and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Praha 6––Suchdol, Czech Republic

    Ján Merganič

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  1. Martin Moravčík
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  2. Zuzana Sarvašová
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Correspondence to Zuzana Sarvašová.

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Moravčík, M., Sarvašová, Z., Merganič, J. et al. Forest Naturalness: Criterion for Decision Support in Designation and Management of Protected Forest Areas. Environmental Management 46, 908–919 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9506-2

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