| 2005 |
|
YEAR BOOK |
COFORD (National Council for Forest Research & Development) & University College Dublin
|
PractiSFM – Multi-Resource Inventory
and Decision Support for Sustainable
Forest Management
|
During the last 30 years, traditional forest objectives aimed at timber production have been replaced by those of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). SFM requires that forest resources are managed in ways that will ensure their integrity, productive capacity, resiliency, and biodiversity and satisfy our economic, environmental and social values.
Developing multi-resource inventory protocols and decision support tools to help Irish forest owners and managers manage their woodlands according to SFM is the main goal of the PractiSFM project.
The project is funded by COFORD (National Council for Forest Research and Development) and Ballycurry Estate, Ashford, Co Wicklow, and is carried out by the Forestry Section of the Department of Crop Science, Horticulture and Forestry at University College Dublin, in co-operation with forestry consultants Purser Tarleton Russell Ltd. and the owners of Ballycurry Estate, Geoffry and Charles Tottenham.
Development of a Multi-Resource Forest Inventory Protocol
The Irish National Forest Standard identifies Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management. How these indicators should be incorporated into SFM practices and into the PractiSFM inventory methodologies needed to be addressed.
An evaluation of methodologies for estimating, among others, deadwood quantities, canopy and ground vegetation cover, terrain classification, wildlife habitat, adjacency to water bodies and residences, access, landscape sensitivity and amenity values was carried out in Ballycurry Estate, Ashford, Co Wicklow, and resulted in a practical and effective multi-resource inventory protocol and fieldsheet.
Development of a Decision Support System (DSS) for Sustainable Forest Management
The computer based PractiSFM DSS was developed to evaluate the multi-resource data collected in the forest and to develop, present and compare alternative forest management strategies.
Main Findings
The combination of the developed PractiSFM multi-resource inventory protocol and DSS has proven to be easy to use and extremely flexible in dealing with the range of forest characteristics and owner's objectives encountered when testing the system in a wide variety of sites and ownerships. A number of forest management companies (PTR, SWS, Greenbelt, Woodlands) and the Forest Service have shown interest in PractiSFM.
Conclusion
This work contributes to the field of sustainable forest management by offering a practical, user-focused approach to multi-resource forest inventory for Irish private forest owners and managers, using C&I identified in the Irish National Forest Standard.
Contact: Frank Barrett,
Department of Crop Science, Horticulture and Forestry,
Faculty of Agri-Food and the Environment,
University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.
E-mail: [email protected]