New standards for forest inventory and commodification of forest-cutting fund in the Republic of Belarus

Abstract

Since 2013, new assortment tables have been adopted in the Republic of Belarus, and since 2015 new growth tables for pine, spruce, birch and aspen. Growth tables were compiled based on 1353 trial plots, where 2546 model trees were taken. New growth tables shows bigger values of forest inventory indicators comparing to modern normative tables: by average diameter, up to 20–30 % in young growth and 6–10 % at older age. The sums of cross-sectional areas and reserves at equal heights in new tables overestimate for pine and spruce for young and middle-aged stands by 6–10 %, and in older ages to 5 %. As a result, the relative abundances of pine and spruce forest stands at the age of 20 to 50 will decrease by approximately 10 %. This will lead to the fact that pine and spruce stands at the age of thinning, having a density of 0.8, will be protected as having a fullness of 0.7, which, in accordance with the rules of cutting the forest in Belarus, will lead to a reduction in thinning in pure stands. 5135 model trees were used for the development of assortment tables. In general, for all tree species, new table tables show a greater yield of commercial timber and valuable assortments comparing to the tables of F. P. Moiseenko by 3–7 %. The amount of large-scale commercial timber is lower according to the new tables than in the old ones. This is due to the decrease in the last 50 years of large trees in the main felling areas.

Keywords

• growth progress tables
• standard table
• assortment tables
• pine
• spruce
• birch
• aspen