Utilising forest inventory data for biodiversity assessment

Abstract

Currently the paradigm of sustainable forest management is extended to a broad range of ecological, economic, and social forest functions and services. In particular, biodiversity becomes a more and more important issue in the forest planning processes. However, its quantification, monitoring and assessment still remain complex and difficult although data from regional or national forest inventories might contribute valuable information for quantifying biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate how such data can be tapped and aggregated to different spatial and temporal scales for deriving indicators to support biodiversity assessment and monitoring. By focusing on tree species and structural related indices, our method allows the evaluation of spatial and temporal variation of diversity indicators by using inventory data. We present a practice-oriented approach on how to integrate such indicators into forest planning processes and thereby extend the paradigm of sustainability of forest management. We exemplify our approach by inventory data from the Bavarian State Forest Enterprise to show how inventory data can be utilised to (i) assess biodiversity aspects from stand to landscape scales and (ii) integrate such information into forest management at different spatial and temporal scales. Finally, we discuss how this information extracted from forest inventories may contribute to a more generalised assessment, monitoring and planning of biodiversity in managed forest ecosystems.

Keywords

• Biodiversity
• Forest inventory
• Spatial and temporal scales
• Scale-overarching
• Sustainable forest management planning