Application d'un SIG à la révision du parcellaire dans le cadre d'aménagements forestiers intégrés

Abstract

Geographic information system applied to delimitation of compartments in integrated forest management. Underintensive silviculture, forest management is based upon the delimitation of compartments (management units) usually definedas reasonably homogeneous stands regarding ecological, biological and silvicultural conditions. Forest lands can often bemanaged for several uses, sometimes on the same area or sometimes with different dominant uses assigned to separate areas.A forest managed primarily for timber production can also serve other purposes. In that respect, it is often necessary toreadjust the limits of management units so that environmental constraints (soil erosion, watershed protection) are taken intoaccount. These considerations require specific silviculture. A geographic information system (GIS) is used to overlayprovisional compartments map (management units) and different thematic maps that describe areas where environmentalconstraints are identified. Informations about these areas located inside the compartments are used in a classification processto decide which orientation is the most suitable allocation (in terms of objectives) for each management unit: timberproduction or protection (humid soils, slopes, rivers and sources). This process also indicates what are the limits of units thatcan or have to be modified. Such a classification has to be considered as a guide to build the final limits of management unitsaccording to the environmental criteria defined as a preliminary. The proposed methodology is applied to a 400 hectaresforest.

Keywords

• Integrated forest management
• geographic information system
• forest management units