Turkish Journal of Forestry (Mar 2020)
GIS-based determination of forest area changes: Case study in Çamsu Forest Sub-district
Abstract
In this study, it was aimed to determine the changes in forest areas by using Geographical Information System. Forest changes were examined between 1990-2019 in Çamsu Forest Sub-district under Uşak Forest Management Directorate, Denizli Regional Directorate of Forestry selected as the study area. Forest management plans and stand maps made in 1990 and 2013 were used for the study. The printed stand maps of 1990 were digitized and a raster-vector conversion process was applied. After organizing the land cover type characteristics in the geographical database, the stand maps of 1990 and 2013 were compared with the overlay analysis by Geographic Information System software and a change layer was obtained. Change matrices were produced and the changes were calculated from geodatabase of the change layer. In addition, silvicultural applications made in 2014-2019 were saved and mapped in this geodatabase. According to the results obtained from the study, changes in various directions and sizes were detected in 34% of the general area. In 2013, it was determined that forest areas increased by 484.05 hectares, approximately half of the stands below 10% crown closure turned into normal closed stands, and agricultural areas decreased by approximately 5%. In silvicultural applications between 2014-2019, it was revealed that seed-tree, release and removal cuts were made in a total of 340 hectares of black pine stands. The data obtained from this study shows that the Geographic Information System is a powerful tool that can be used to determine the temporal changes in forest areas. We emphasize that these systems, which can provide important decision support to the practitioners in forestry studies, can be transformed into an efficient forest information system by supporting the data of forestry activities that are entered to the geographical database daily and remote sensing data such as unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial photographs and satellite images.
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