Integrating the risk of wind damage into forest planning

Wind is the major abiotic risk factor in Finnish forests. Therefore, tools that help managers to assess the risk of wind damage are required. This study developed simple regression models for predicting the critical wind speed needed to uproot Scots pine, Norway spruce and birch trees at the stand edges in Finnish conditions, using the characteristics of the retained forest both downwind and upwind stands as predictors. Using information on the prevailing wind conditions in the region, the critical wind speeds were converted into probabilities of wind damage, from which a mean risk index was calculated. The mean risk index was used as an objective variable in heuristic optimisation. The results of minimizing the mean risk index were compared to other objective variables such as minimal height differences between adjacent stands. The residuals of the regression models of critical wind speeds were small, especially in Scots pine and birch. Increasing tree height of the downwind stand or area of the upwind stand (gap size) decreased the critical wind speed regardless of tree species, whereas increases in the dbh/height ratio of the downwind stand increased the critical wind speed. The shelter effect of upwind stand height was stronger in Norway spruce than in other tree species, whereas the effect of tree height of the downwind stand was larger in Scots pine and birch. Minimization of the mean risk of wind damage within forest landscapes led to smooth and non-fragmented landscape structures in terms of tree height. Incorporating even-flow constraints into the planning model led to a slight increase in the mean risk of wind damage. Of the surrogate methods for risk assessment minimization of height differences between adjacent stands performed well but not equally well as minimization of the mean risk index.     

Using ALS raster data in forest planning

Raster type of forest inventory data with site and growing stock variables interpreted for small squareshaped grid cells are increasingly available for forest planning.In Finland,there are two sources of this type of lattice data:the multisource national forest inventory and the inventory that is based on airborne laser scanning(ALS).In both cases,stand variables are interpreted for 16 m×16 m cells.Both data sources cover all private forests of Finland and are freely available for forest planning.This study analyzed different ways to use the ALS raster data in forest planning.The analyses were conducted for a grid of 375×375 cells(140,625 cells,of which 97,893 were productive forest).The basic alternatives were to use the cells as calculation units throughout the planning process,or aggregate the cells into segments before planning calculations.The use of cells made it necessary to use spatial optimization to aggregate cuttings and other treatments into blocks that were large enough for the practical implementation of the plan.In addition,allowing premature cuttings in a part of the cells was a prerequisite for compact treatment areas.The use of segments led to 5–9%higher growth predictions than calculations based on cells.In addition,the areas of the most common fertility classes were overestimated and the areas of rare site classes were underestimated when segments were used.The shape of the treatment blocks was more irregular in cell-based planning.Using cells as calculation units instead of segments led to 20 times longer computing time of the whole planning process than the use of segments when the number of grid cells was approximately 100,000.     

Consideration of strong winds, their directional distribution and snow loading in wind risk assessment related to landscape level forest planning

Forest planning needs to assess various risks that may cause economic or other losses to forest owners. This study aimed at developing a wind risk assessment method, which considers the occurrence and directional distribution of strong winds, and the effect of snow loads and support by neighbouring trees on the expected wind damage. For this purpose, regression models were developed for predicting the critical wind speeds needed to uproot Scots pine, Norway spruce and birch trees at the downwind stand edges in Finnish conditions under unfrozen soil conditions, based on the characteristics of both downwind and upwind stand, and additional snow load on tree crowns. Furthermore, a risk index was developed for the forest landscape, based on the critical wind speeds of stands, occurrence of strong winds and their directional distribution, and the prevailing snow loading in the region. Thereafter, the mean risk index was used as an objective variable in heuristic optimization in forest planning to demonstrate how the optimal cuttings and the spatial layout of the landscape may change depending on the wind and snow conditions and the support that trees provide to each other. Our results show that the directional distribution of strong winds shape the optimal forest landscape structure markedly. Consideration of snow loading in the calculation of critical wind speeds increased the mean risk clearly and produced slightly more aggregated landscape structures in terms of tree height. The consideration of support that neighbouring trees provide to each other had minor effects. To conclude, the consideration of risk of wind induced damages in forest planning calculations clearly affects the selected cutting strategies and impacts the spatial layout of the landscape.     

METHODS OF EVALUATING FOREST FIRE HISTORY

Forest fire history can be reconstructed over past centuries across a widevariety of forest types.Fire scars on living tress,and age classes of forest stands,are thetwo sources of information for these reconstructions.Point and area frequencies are usedto reconstruct fire history.Point frequencies are useful in forest types that burn withfrequent,low intensity fire so that many fire-scarred residual trees exist.A true point isa single tree,but more often point estimates are made by combining fire scar records fromseveral adjacent trees.Area frequences are applied where fires are infrequent but ofmoderate to high intensity,so that stand ages are used across wide areas to estimate firereturn interals.Proper selection and application of fire history methods are essential toderiving useful ecological implications from fire history studies.This review evaluates the common methods of determining fire history:what thetechniques are,where they are best applied,and how to interpret them in an ecologicalcontext.E     

Assessing fire risk using Monte Carlo simulations of fire spread

Understanding the spatial pattern of fire is essential for Mediterranean vegetation management. Fire-risk maps are typically constructed at coarse resolutions using vegetation maps with limited capacity for prescribing prevention activities. This paper describes and evaluates a novel approach for fire risk assessment that may produce a decision support system for actual fire management at fine scales. FARSITE, a two-dimensional fire growth and behavior model was activated, using ArcView VBA code, to generate Monte Carlo simulations of fire spread. The study area was 300 km² of Mt. Carmel, Israel. FARSITE fuel models were adjusted for Mediterranean conditions. The simulation session consisted of 500 runs. For each simulation run, a calendar date, fire length, ignition location, climatic data and other parameters were selected randomly from known distributions of these parameters. Distance from road served as a proxy for the probability of ignition. The resulting 500 maps of fire distribution (the entire area burnt in a specific fire) were overlaid to produce a map of ‘hotspots’ and ‘cold spots’ of fire frequency. The results revealed a clear pattern of fires, with high frequency areas concentrated in the northwestern part. The spatial pattern of the fire frequency map bears partial resemblance to the fuel map, but seems to be affected by several other factors as well, including the location of urban areas, microclimate, topography and the distribution of ignition locations (which is affected by road pattern). These results demonstrate the complexities of fire behavior, showing a very clear pattern of risk level even at fine scales, where neighboring areas have different risk levels due to combinations of vegetation cover, topography, microclimate and other factors.     

The role of fire in forest dynamics in Daxinganling region

Recent fire statistics and preliminary fire history data suggest that fire has been historically responsible for maintaining the vegetative communities up to present in Daxinganling region. Forest types, and even tree species, arc dependent on the degree of fire intensity, fire size, depth of burn and fire frequency. Selected samples of larch, pine, birch and spruce forest were studied in terms of species composition as determined by fire frequency which mainly depends on topography and site conditions. Intervals between fires range between 6 and 170 years.     

卫星遥感技术在林火管理与研究中的应用(英文)

卫星遥感已经成为森林火险等级预测、可燃物和火烧区制图、林火监测和火生态研究的一个主要数据来源。本文综述了这些研究领域的研究成果,分析了未来林火管理中采用的卫星遥感技术的发展趋势。根据卫星遥感数据制取的可燃物分布图可以满足林火管理在空间和时间尺度上的需要。单独采用遥感数据或结合地面气象数据可以生成一些火险指数,用于森林火险的预报。目前NOAA 和MODIS 卫星由于有高的时间分辨率已被广泛用于林火探测和监测,这些监测结果可以在许多林火网站上见到,这为世界各地的林火管理和研究提供了重要的参考资料。作为低成本的有效工具, 卫星遥感技术在确定火烧面积和过火区制图上发挥了重要作用。遥感技术的发展也可以用来推断火烧时间和估计火烧程度。卫星遥感也非常适合用来估计生物燃烧面积,这是估计全球或区域生物燃烧排放量和理解火对全球变化的影响的基础。本文还讨论了林火研究中采用的卫星类型。文章最后建议中国需要在卫星遥感技术的应用上进一步发展,提高我国的林火管理水平。参71。     

江苏北亚热带森林防火林带营建技术的研究

从１９８８年开始，开展江苏北亚热带地区防火树种的选择，并在试点营建多种结构的防火林带。研究结果认为，防火性较好 的树种是杨梅、木荷、女贞等＋油茶、为好。     

Long-term effects of prescribed fire on mixed conifer forest structure in the Sierra Nevada, California

The capacity of prescribed fire to restore forest conditions is often judged by changes in forest structure within a few years following burning. However, prescribed fire might have longer-term effects on forest structure, potentially changing treatment assessments. We examined annual changes in forest structure in five 1 ha old-growth plots immediately before prescribed fire and up to eight years after fire at Sequoia National Park, California. Fire-induced declines in stem density (67% average decrease at eight years post-fire) were nonlinear, taking up to eight years to reach a presumed asymptote. Declines in live stem biomass were also nonlinear, but smaller in magnitude (32% average decrease at eight years post-fire) as most large trees survived the fires. The preferential survival of large trees following fire resulted in significant shifts in stem diameter distributions. Mortality rates remained significantly above background rates up to six years after the fires. Prescribed fire did not have a large influence on the representation of dominant species. Fire-caused mortality appeared to be spatially random, and therefore did not generally alter heterogeneous tree spatial patterns. Our results suggest that prescribed fire can bring about substantial changes to forest structure in old-growth mixed conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada, but that long-term observations are needed to fully describe some measures of fire effects.     

城市森林火灾隐患及其管理

人为纵火、林区吸烟、施工用火、闪电、林区建筑物以及不合理的城市森林规划等是城市森林火灾发生的重要隐患,常常导致城市森林火灾的发生,给城市居民的生命和财产造成了巨大的损失。加强对城市森林火灾发生原因的研究,合理规划城市森林布局和结构,加强对火灾隐患的管理,减少城市森林火灾的发生,是维护城市生态可持续发展的必然要求。       

Fire cycle and fire adaptation of main tree species in Daxing’anling forest region,China

Based on the fire statistics, the Daxing’anling forest area were classified into three fire cycle regions: northern coniferous virgin forest region with a fire cycle ofl 10–120 years, middle conifer-broad-leaved mixed forest region with a fire cycle of 30–40 years, and southern broad-leaved secondary forest region with a fire cycle of 15–20. The percentage of conifers and broad-leaved trees, forest age and natural mature period of main tree species in different fire cycle regions were discussed in concern with fire occurrence. The characteristics of fire adaptation and fire resistance of main tree species, such as sexual and asexual reproduction, were discussed and evaluation of the synthetical fire adaptation was made.     

关于营林用火相关问题的探讨

林火作为重要的生态因子,影响着森林生态系统的平衡。本文介绍了营林用火的概念,阐述了营林用火的理论基础。营林用火包括计划火烧和控制火烧,因不同的经营目的而采用不同的用火方式。同时还讨论了营林用火在应用与相关研究中存在的问题。     

生土防火路改建木荷防火林带的效益研究

对生土防火路改建木荷防火林带的林木生长效果、防火性能、培肥地力与水源涵养功能以及经济效益等的研究表明 ,木荷适应性强 ,在原防火路较差的土壤条件下 ,能迅速郁闭并很快成林且防火性能强 ,是优良的防火树种 ,12年生混交林带中木荷的平均树高达 9 36m ,胸径达 9 97cm ,生物量达 4 0 5 6t/hm2 ,显示出较强的防火效能。同时 ,该防火林带与生土防火路相比 ,不但具有较强的培肥地力、涵养水源等功能且经济效益显著 ,是该区较为理想的防火林带 ,可进一步推广营造     

Historic and current fire regimes in the Great Xing’an Mountains,northeastern China: Implications for long-term forest management

Understanding both historic and current fire regimes is indispensable to sustainable forest landscape management. In this paper, we use a spatially explicit landscape simulation model, LANDIS, to simulate historic and current fire regimes in the Great Xing’an Mountains, in northeastern China. We analyzed fire frequency, fire size, fire intensity, and spatial pattern of burnt patches. Our simulated results show that fire frequency under the current fire scenario is lower than under the historic fire scenario; total area burnt is larger with lower fire intensity under the historic fire scenario, and smaller with higher fire intensity under the current fire scenario. We also found most areas were burned by high intensity fires under the current fire scenario, but by low to moderate fires under the historic fire scenario. Burnt patches exhibit a different pattern between the two simulation scenarios. Large patches burnt by high intensity class fires dominate the landscape under the current fire scenario, and under historic fire scenario, patches burnt by low to moderate fire intensity fires have relatively larger size than those burnt by high intensity fires. Based on these simulated results, we suggest that prescribed burning or coarse woody debris reduction should be incorporated into forest management plans in this region, especially on north-facing slopes. Tree planting may be a better management option on these severely burned areas whereas prescribed burning after small area selective cutting, retaining dispersed seed trees, may be a sound forest management alternative in areas except for the severely burned patches.     

Estimating natural forest fire return interval in northeastern Ontario,Canada

Long-term forest fire regime was simulated for the Moose River Forest Management Unit (FMU) in northeastern Ontario. The simulated area has not been managed for timber production and fire suppression activity has been minimal. The available data included fire records for 1970–2006 and forest age structure from forest resource inventory completed in 1978. The fire regime was simulated using a simple percolation model driven by three parameters: probabilities of fire spread during low and high fire activity years and of a given year being a low fire activity year. The model successfully generated a long-term fire regime producing age structure and 37-year-long fire records similar to those observed for the Moose River FMU. The simulation results suggest that (a) fire return interval in northeastern Ontario is likely much shorter than indicated by estimates based exclusively on data from the last four decades of fire activity, and (b) it is possible that the fire regime in northeastern Ontario has not changed since mid-1800s but rather is characterized by relatively long periods of low incidence of fire interspersed with pulses of high fire activity.     

Modeling fire susceptibility in west central Alberta, Canada

Strategic modification of forest vegetation has become increasingly popular as one of the few preemptive activities that land managers can undertake to reduce the likelihood that an area will be burned by a wildfire. Directed use of prescribed fire or harvest planning can lead to changes in the type and arrangement of forest vegetation across the landscape that, in turn, may reduce fire susceptibility across large areas. While among the few variables that fire managers can influence, fuel conditions are only one of many factors that determine fire susceptibility. Variations in weather and topography, in combination with fuels, determine which areas are more likely to burn under a given fire regime. An understanding of these combined factors is necessary to identify high fire susceptibility areas for prioritizing and evaluating strategic fuel management activities, as well as informing other fire management activities, such as community protection planning and strategic level allocation of fire suppression resources across a management area. We used repeated fire growth simulations, automated in the Burn-P3 landscape-fire simulation model, to assess spatial variations in fire susceptibility across a 2.4 million ha study area in the province of Alberta, Canada. The results were used to develop a Fire Susceptibility Index (FSI). Multivariate statistical analyses were used to identify the key factors that determine variation in FSI across the study area and to describe the spatial scale at which these variables influence fire susceptibility at a given location. A fuel management scenario was used to assess the impact of prescribed fire treatments on FSI. Results indicated that modeled fire susceptibility was strongly influenced by fuel composition, fuel arrangement, and topography. The likelihood of high or extreme FSI values at a given location was strongly associated with the percent of conifer forest within a 2-km radius, and with elevation and ignition patterns within a 5-km radius. Results indicated that prescribed fire treatments can be effective at reducing forest fire susceptibility in community protection zones and that simulation modeling is an effective means of evaluating spatial variation in landscape fire susceptibility.     

火干扰对天然红松林结构和演替过程的影响

Investigations on charcoal in the soil, fire-scarred trees, stand composition, forest structure as well as regeneration status were carried out in the natural broad-leaved/Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forest after fire disturbance at Liangshui Nature Reserve on the mid-north of Xiaoxing‘an Mountains from 1990 to 1992, and the ecological effects of fire disturbance on the formation and succession of this kind of forest were analyzed according to the survey results. The average depth of charcoal in the soil was related to the timing of the fire. According to the characteristic of fire-scarred trees, the dynamic map of the fire behavior was drawn onto the topographic map. It showed that the dimension and extent of the fire disturbance was closely related with site conditions. Fire disturbance only led to a significant difference in stand composition and diameter class structurefor the stands at different locations, rather than completely destroying the forest. After fire disturbance, the horizontal community structure was a mosaic of different patches, which were made up of different deciduous species or different sizes of Korean pines, and the succession trend of each patch was also different. In the sites with the heavy fire disturbance, the intolerant hardwood species were dominant, and there were a large number of regenerative Korean pine saplings under the canopy. In the moderate -disturbed sites, the tolerant hardwood species were dominant, and a small number of large size Korean pines still survived. In the light-disturbed sites, large size Korean pines were dominant.     

槐花黄 举子忙——透视槐树文化与科举制度

文章探讨了槐树文化与中国科举制度之间丰富的文化内涵。槐树（Sophora japonica Linn）．又称国槐,在我国分布广泛,它枝干茂密,淳朴厚重,是人们喜爱的一个乡土树种。