Monitoring spatial and temporal pattern of Paneveggio forest (northern Italy) from 1859 to 2006

Abstract

© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionForest cover in the Alps in the past centuries was shaped by human activities: agriculture and timber harvesting affected the lower and intermediate elevations while farming the higher (MacDonald et al. 2000). In fact, the traditional form of farming in the Alps involved moving livestock (mainly cows and sheep) from the valleys to the higher pastures according to the season. In winter the animals were sheltered in the valleys while during the summer they were carried to higher pastures where they could exploit the seasonal abundance of food. The herdsman used to stay in the typical mountain dairy called "Malga" surrounded by natural pastures or grassland derived from forest clearance (Piussi 2000). Farming in these areas was traditionally extensive and carried out by means of local and frugal breeds.During World War I the forests of the eastern Italian Alps were extensively exploited by the soldiers because the fighting took place on the national border which ran along the tops of the mountains in the area being investigated. Since the end of World War II land use in mountain areas has changed dramatically: as many people moved to the cities, the traditional activities were almost abandoned, and consequently the pressure that shaped the vegetation for centuries was no longer there (De Natale et al. 2005, Sitzia et al. 2007, Sitzia 2009). While these social issues affect the Alps as well as in the study area, their impact on vegetation distribution and composition are harder to estimate (Swetnam et al. 1999, Scarascia-Mugnozza et al. 2000, Ciolli et al. 2002, Dullinger et al. 2003, Garbarino et al. 2009).There are interesting studies showing that agriculture related biodiversity is highly threatened both through abandonment and intensification but, unfortunately, much of the available data concerns arable and lowland farmland, although there is a lack of knowledge in mountain areas (Marriott et al. 2004).The The problem has been fully recognised also at EU level: a recent EEA report (European Environment Agency 2004) stresses the fact that the prevalence of high nature value farmland is in less productive areas, such as those located in southern Europe and in mountainous regions. Many relevant conservation efforts have been undertaken at a European level, such as the Pan-European biological and landscape diversity strategy, the Bern Convention, the European Landscape Convention, the Birds and Habitats Directives.In order to understand the ecological dynamics in the Alps under changing social and climatic conditions, it is crucial to develop a knowledge of what the forest landscape was like in the past and to get a precise idea of the rapidity of the natural succession set up in the open semi-natural grassland habitats.Multi-temporal analysis of historical maps, aerial photographs and satellite images with the aid of GIS is the best tools to reconstruct the past distribution of forest cover. The recent availability of aerial and satellite imagery and of the instru...

Simulating Forest Cover Changes of Bannerghatta National Park Based on a CA-Markov Model: A Remote Sensing Approach

“…Additionally, traditional methods of evaluating PAs have varied (comparison of inside versus outside PA, protected versus non protected forest, past trends versus future trends), but most of these studies still focus on assessing deforestation rates. Nevertheless, evaluation of effectiveness of PAs in tropical forest areas experiencing simultaneous deforestation and reforestation has been successfully done using a CA-Markov modeling approach [12,14,15,52,54]. Our findings of a positive impact of policy intervention on forest cover of BNP and assessment of simultaneous deforestation and reforestation trends using CA Markov methods certainly expands on the literature on present forest transition studies.…”

“…64 countries have less than 10% forest cover and of these ten have no forest at all. Globally, protected areas (PAs) still remain the most popular conservation approach to protect biodiversity [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Often it is assumed that legal protection will bring positive impact on the forest cover of an area and help in lowering deforestation [16].…”

“…In other words, to understand the impact of a protection, we want to know what would have happened to forest cover if there would have been no policy intervention, i.e., would the rate of change in forest cover have differed under differing political or institutional frameworks. Additionally, policy interventions within PAs have varied between and within countries, which make any generalization about the effectiveness of PAs even harder and necessitate case-by-case evaluation [12][13][14][15].…”

“…Globally, forest management policies within PAs have varied from a complete exclusion of people and no extraction of any forest resources; to a more inclusive forest management approaches where local inhabitants co-manage the forest with the government; to completely owning and managing the forest; to a more privately managed forest reserve [12][13][14][15][19][20][21]. However, within these two broader frameworks of forest management approaches, inclusionary and exclusionary approaches [20], people have debated over the effectiveness of each approach [21].…”

Matching socio-economic and environmental efficiency of wood-residues energy chain: a partial equilibrium model for a case study in Alpine area

“…Trento province can be considered representative of the entire Alpine region because it is affected by the same dynamic of social and landscape changes that can be found elsewhere in the Alps (Tattoni et al, 2010(Tattoni et al, , 2011. Until now, the materials for the production of thermal energy in district heating (DH) plants in the study area have mainly been obtained from sawmill logging residues (Sacchelli et al, 2011).…”