Modelling Facilitates Silvicultural Decision-Making for Improving the Mitigating Effect of Beech (Fagus Sylvatica L.) Dominated Alpine Forest against Rockfall
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Stand and Site Characteristics
2.2. Recordings
2.3. Expert Assessment of Forest Protection Functions and Target Forest Profiles
2.4. Modelling Rockfall Susceptibility
3. Results
3.1. Expert Assessment of Present and Future Forest Protective Function against Rockfall
Attribute | Minimum requirements for the target profile | Existing forest |
---|---|---|
Stand mixture | 60%–100% deciduous trees (50%–100% Fagus sylvatica, 0%–30% Picea abies) | 76% deciduous trees (35% Fagus sylvatica, 22% Picea abies) |
Vertical structure | Enough trees with growth potential in at least two DBH classes per hectare | yes |
Horizontal structure | 300 trees per hectare with DBH over 24 cm | 327 trees |
Stability | Half of all trees should have a symmetric crown, vertical trunk and good anchoring | yes |
Regeneration conditions | Competitive herbs cover less than 1/3 of the entire area | 30% |
Regeneration: 10–40 cm high | 10 beech seedlings per acre (one every 3 meters) | 24 beech seedlings |
Regeneration: 40 cm high to 12 cm in DBH | Two regeneration cones per hectare of 0.02–0.05 ha in size (one cone every 75 meters or at least 4% cover of regeneration) | yes |
Size class (height in cm) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Species | 0–20 | 21–50 | 51–130 |
Fagus sylvatica | 1587 | 847 | 0 |
Picea abies | 212 | 106 | 423 |
Abies alba | 5291 | 0 | 0 |
Acer pseudoplatanus | 24,021 | 635 | 423 |
Sum | 31,111 | 1588 | 846 |
Target | 17,000–35,000 | 2600–18,000 | 600–6000 |
3.2. Modelling Forest Protective Functions against Rockfall and Assessment of Silvicultural Scenarios
Scenario | Mean kinetic energy of rocks on the road (kilojoule (kJ)) | Average number of deposited rocks on the road | Percent of rocks which reached the road |
---|---|---|---|
Non-forested slope | 116.7 | 17,091 | 9.5 |
Current forest | 106.3 | 13,073 | 7.3 |
Forest with cable crane lines | 109.3 | 13,332 | 7.4 |
Selection forest | 109.0 | 12,524 | 7.0 |
4. Discussion
4.1. Existing and Future Forest Protection against Rockfall
4.2. Expert Assessment vs. Modelling
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix
Source | Maximum kinetic energy of the rock (kJ) |
---|---|
0 | 100 |
1 | 155 |
2_2 | 50 |
2_3 | 150 |
7 | 150 |
9 | 100 |
10 | 100 |
12_2 | 100 |
12_3 | 100 |
15 | 200 |
24 | 100 |
25 | 100 |
27_1 | 150 |
27_2 | 150 |
33 | 50 |
34 | 177 |
35 | 47 |
36_3 | 144 |
37 | 99 |
38_3 | 100 |
38_4 | 100 |
38_5 | 100 |
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Kajdiž, P.; Diaci, J.; Rebernik, J. Modelling Facilitates Silvicultural Decision-Making for Improving the Mitigating Effect of Beech (Fagus Sylvatica L.) Dominated Alpine Forest against Rockfall. Forests 2015, 6, 2178-2198. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062178
Kajdiž P, Diaci J, Rebernik J. Modelling Facilitates Silvicultural Decision-Making for Improving the Mitigating Effect of Beech (Fagus Sylvatica L.) Dominated Alpine Forest against Rockfall. Forests. 2015; 6(6):2178-2198. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062178
Chicago/Turabian StyleKajdiž, Petra, Jurij Diaci, and Jernej Rebernik. 2015. "Modelling Facilitates Silvicultural Decision-Making for Improving the Mitigating Effect of Beech (Fagus Sylvatica L.) Dominated Alpine Forest against Rockfall" Forests 6, no. 6: 2178-2198. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062178