ECOGEOFOR laboratorio di Ecologia e Geomatica Forestale Università degli Studi del Molise Contrada F.te Lappone 86090 Pesche (IS) Italy
gherardo.chirici@unimol.it
Gherardo Chirici (born in Florence, Italy, the 3rd of June 1971). Associate Professor at the University of Molise (Italy) (chair of Forest Inventory and Applied Geomatics), PhD in Forest Management (2002) at the University of Tuscia (Italy). Coordinator of IUFRO 4.02.04 – Geographic and management information systems. His main research interests are forest geomatics and inventory, application of remote sensing for landscape ecology and biodiversity monitoring, multiscale integration and sustainable forest management. He has leaded several research projects (within the others he is leader of WG3 – forest biodiversity - of COST action E43, harmonisation of National Forest Inventories: techniques for common reporting) and he is author and co-author of more than 150 scientific publications and 3 books on these topics.
Abstract: The Forest Biodiversity Test phase Assessments (ForestBIOTA) project was carried out on 97 intensive monitoring plots located in 12 European countries. It aimed at the development and test implementation of monitoring methods for forest biodiversity across Europe. More specifically it covered the fields of (i) stand structure, (ii) forest deadwood, (iii) ground vegetation and (iv) epiphytic lichens. A forest type classification was applied in addition. The project took into account policy requirements stated by a number of political processes and institutions including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe, the Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference and the European Union. Whereas detailed results of the assessments are presented in additional publications (Stofer et al. 2007, in prep, Meyer et al. 2007, submitted), this paper draws a number of general conclusions and gives recommendations for future development of forest biodiversity monitoring in Europe.
Abstract: Abstract In the landscape ecological literature, a number of measures have been proposed for quantifying landscape fragmentation based on distinct objectives and motivations. However, none seems to be generally preferred. The main reason for this disagreement is that, from a statistical viewpoint, by mapping fragmentation into a single scalar, information is necessarily lost and no ideal function is able to uniquely characterize all aspects of landscape fragmentation. A more complete summarization of fragmentation is possible if, instead of one single index, a parametric index family is applied whose members have varying sensitivities to the presence of large and small landscape patches. While traditional indices supply point descriptions of fragmentation, according to a parametric fragmentation family H α, there is a continuum of possible fragmentation measures that differ in their sensitivity to the presence of large and small patches as a function of the scaling parameter α. Therefore, changing α allows for vector description of fragmentation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a parametric generalization of Shannonâs entropy to summarize landscape fragmentation. A small set of artificial landscapes is used to clarify our proposal.
Abstract: Landscape ecology starts from the assumption that diversity and spatial arrangement of ecosystem mosaics have ecological implications and tries to understand the interactions between diversity and structure of large spatially heterogeneous areas and their ecological functions. These assumptions imply effective use of earth observation techniques and geographic information systems, enabling a global view of the landscape mosaics. In this paper, a software, LaDy (Landscape Diversity Software), for computing Renyi's local landscape diversity profile on raster land cover maps is presented. LaDy is based on the use of Merchant's adaptive geographic window, which is designed to operate on a neighborhood of patches instead of a fixed rectangular neighborhood of pixels (the conventional approach in image analysis).
Abstract: The established practice of forest ecosystem inventory and monitoring is recognised as a main support for terrestrial natural renewable resource survey programmes. Inventory and monitoring programmes focused on an overall assessment of ecosystem attributes evolving into global environmental survey programmes have been devised, but implementation is still quite contradictory. The state-of-the-art is discussed here, with special reference to the European Union and Italy. Topical issues are reviewed, with selective concern to: remote sensing capability, probability sampling, forest type (habitat) classification and landscape ecology, sustainable management indicators. Benefits brought by information technology are highlighted. Its development and the implementation of approaches based on a sound âper habitatâ landscape ecological perspective will bring unique benefits, thus leading to an effective integration among sector surveys aimed at global environmental inventory/monitoring.
