Search

Climate change poses new challenges to forest management and the necessary spatial information on nutrient status and water availability of forest soils. Digital Soil Mapping techniques allow to update spatial data sets for forest planning and to provide them for previously unmapped areas. The potential and uncertainties were demonstrated using the example of the forest site mapping system of Hesse, Germany. The six soil nutrient index classes (poor, moderate-weak, moderate, moderate-good, rich, carbonatic) were updated to better reflect the soil nutrient availability observed by the second National Forest Soil Inventory (NFSI II). The frequency distribution generated by the model shows a significantly higher correspondence of the individual nutrient index classes with the distribution of the nutrient index classes derived from the nutrient availability observed at the spatially representative soil profiles of the NFSI. Furthermore, corresponding information could also be provided for the more than 20 % previously unmapped forest area in Hesse. Through the use of a Random Forest Model (RF), spatial information on terrain water regime classes could also be provided for unmapped areas. The RF model shows overall a "considerable" agreement between the modeled terrain water regime classes and those of the forest site mapping in the evaluation process. However, higher uncertainties exist in the modeling of "fresh" forest sites. Based on the terrain water regime classes, now available for the entire area of Hesse, a statistical model for estimating available soil water capacity was parameterized and evaluated with the soil profiles from the NFSI. The model for the available soil water capacity represents a clear improvement compared to the approaches used in forest planning in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung is the property of J. D. Sauerlaender's Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)