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According to the “Habitat” Directive 92/43/EEC, the conservation status of natural habitats depends on the occurrence of populations of their typical species. For some forest habitats, typical species do not occur as canopy dominant trees but are found in the understory. This is the case with the priority habitat ’‘Apennine beech forests with Taxus and Ilex’’ 9210*. Taxus baccata L. and Ilex aquifolium L. are evergreen tree species and occur as isolated trees or groups in the understory of beech dominated forests. Accordingly, the knowledge of the spatial pattern of populations of typical species is fundamental for habitat monitoring goals. In this perspective, this study aims to evaluate the potential of very high-resolution, true color, leaf-off imagery (pixel size = 0.11 m), supplied by Google Earth, for mapping these populations. Understory layer detection has been accomplished through an object-oriented approach, based on multiresolution segmentation. The classification was developed with thresholds based on spectral and geometric properties, as well as on textural and contextual information. The main critical issues are represented by site conditions, where shadowing can prevent crown detection. The thematic accuracy of the target species map resulted in a Producer Accuracy of 0.77 and a User Accuracy of 0.80. The proposed procedure offers a good methodological foundation with which to map the actual spatial extent of forest broadleaved deciduous habitat types, characterized by low abundance and patchily distributed populations of yew and holly.

Pyrosilviculture and understory fuel management to reduce forest stand and landscape flammability represent loss-making interventions from an economic point of view. Consequently, prevention is carried out above all on public property and with public funds (e.g. Rural Development Programs), while the interest of the private individual for prevention interventions on aggregated areas is limited. These shortcomings do not allow to reach the distribution and the quantity of treated surface necessary to modify the fire regime and its impacts. To solve this problem, we need initiatives that catalyse the interests of multiple stakeholders (economic actors, bodies responsible for territorial management and research, fire-fighter agencies) towards common goals. Moreover, we need to improve the cost-efficiency ratio of prevention through value-chains of products and services generated by preventive measures (e.g. payments for positive externalities and ecosystem services). Within the European project PREVAIL (PREVention Action Increases Large fire response preparedness) we analysed collaborative processes in the Mediterranean Basin between private and public actors that developed 'smart solutions'. Different sources of funding, including non-specific funds for prevention, offer additional economic resources to support preventive value-chains (e.g. RDP funds for agro-pastoral and forestry development, LIFE funds for habitat conservation, private investments, PES mechanisms). This paper analyses the key elements that characterise smart solutions for wildfire risk prevention in Southern EU: sustainability, cost-benefit ratio, synergies between sources of financing, inter-sectoral cooperation and integration between strategic prevention planning and multiple land governance objectives, innovation and knowledge transfer, and adaptive approach. A selection of solutions documented by the PREVAIL project and replicable in other contests will be presented and discussed.

The European Union Rural Development Program (RDP) is a major driver of landscape change over time in Europe. In a context of climate and land use changes and consequent fire risk exacerbation, understanding the possible contribution of RDP measures to wildfire risk mitigation could help planning subsidies allocation criteria in a more efficient way for fire prevention. However, little is known on the links between the spatial allocation of RDP subsidies, relevant for wildfires prevention, and the spatial distribution of fire activity. Our study aims to fill this knowledge gap through an exploratory analysis carried out in Italy and based on fire activity indicators of the period 2007–2017, RDP expenditure at municipal level in the period 2017–2013, and a series of ancillary indicators. We selected RDP measures specifically addressing wildfires (direct prevention) and those whose implementation has an impact on fire regime (indirect prevention). Our results suggest a low association between RDP expenditure for fire-related measures and subsequent reduction of wildfire activity. Principal Component Analysis suggests a role of managed rural areas in mitigating fire activity, as well as a spatial mismatch between wildfire prevention expenditure and high fire activity contexts. We claim the need for a deeper integration of territorial planning information within the RDP funding allocation criteria. Also, integrating RDP indirect prevention measures within fire management plans would be a cost-effective approach to leverage the impact of public policies on wildfire risk management, by allocating the limited financial resources to high-risk areas.

Forest condition, biodiversity, and ecosystem services are strongly interlinked. The biodiversity levels depend to a large extent on the integrity, health, and vitality of forests at the same time as losses of forest biodiversity lead to decreased forest productivity and sustainability. Under this conceptual framework, this study presents a methodology for mapping forest condition at European scale supporting the attainment of the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Target 5 “the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation is significantly reduced” and the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as well as the EU forest strategy since the sustainable forest management is oriented to support the provision of forest services and to enhance the condition of biodiversity forests’ host. The work presents the developments of an operational indicator at European scale. This spatially explicit information on forest condition can be the baseline map with a 1 km resolution to monitor the state and changes of condition by exposition to pressures and threats. This condition indicator considers structural, functional, and compositional aspects of forest with relevance for health and vitality of species and habitats hosted by forest ecosystems. The methodology implemented used harmonized, published and open datasets. It provided confident results for the assessment of the condition within hemiboreal, temperate and alpine forests, showing the Carpathian, Dinaric Alps and Alps, among others, as hotspots with pre-dominantly good condition. The results were validated with data derived from the reporting for the EU Habitat Directive and explicit dataset on known primary forests in Europe. However, this method underestimated the forest condition in the Mediterranean and Boreal forest types due to data gaps, regional specific characteristics, and design limitations. (...) This work is part of the support provided by the European Topic Centre on Urban Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS) to European Environment Agency. The authors thank JI Barredo and M Erhard for the discussions and FM Sabatini and the Forest and CO project that facilitated the access to the datasets and provide support during the methodology development. Finally, we want to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which contributed to improving the manuscript. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA.

Three quarters of the European population live in urban areas, which is expected to increase to over 80% by 2050. The well-being of urban citizens appears to be closely linked to the correlation between the growth of urban areas and to the availability of green spaces. The conservation and the enhancement of the Green Infrastructure (GI) can be considered a Nature-Based Solution (NBS) to improve the sustainability of urban development. From this perspective, it is important to identify priority areas close to existing GIs suitable to be preserved from further urban encroachment. Our study aims to draw up a methodology to identify priority areas and, accordingly, to expand the GIs. The main objectives are: (i) to identify the most sensitive areas of the GI to be preserved from urban encroachment; (ii) to locate arable lands in the vacant border territories between GIs and built-up areas, that, if converted into connected elements, would enhance the connectivity of the existing GIs whilst limiting land take; (iii) to define an index of priorities for increasing the GI territory by means of NBSs, taking into account the variability of GI coverage and level of legal protection for nature conservation across different neighborhoods in the city. This approach is applied to the GIs of the 15 administrative units of the municipality of Rome (Italy) as a case study. First, we focus on Urban Atlas classes to map the GIs in the municipality. We then use Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis, implemented by a free software toolbox GUIDOS, to identify the key components of the GIs, such as hubs (core areas) and links (bridges). Then, a simulated new scenario is provided by including within the current GIs the agricultural lands outside protected areas, but within a buffer zone of 300 m from the land take. If the aforementioned agricultural lands, amounting to about 8000 ha, were converted into GI elements, they could lead to the improvement of connectivity and limit land take. Finally, in order to expand the area of the GIs, priority areas are selected within each administrative unit using an index based on the budget allocation process. The proposed methodology could be used: (i) by decision makers, looking for NBS in the design and planning of sustainable development of the city; and (ii) to enhance GI connectivity.

The present study presents a multidimensional analysis of land-use efficiency in terms of per-capita built-up area over 417 metropolitan regions from 27 European countries. The study period encompasses two urban phases including economic expansion (2000-2007) and crisis (2008-2015). Multiple geographical gradients were identified as relevant predictors of land-use efficiency across Europe. The socioeconomic variables most associated with high land-use efficiency were per-capita disposable income (in Western, Atlantic and Central Europe) and income growth during 2000-2007 (in Eastern Europe), indicating that wealthier cities are characterized by higher land-use efficiency. Land-use efficiency increased in contexts with diversified urban landscapes.

15 Pág. Ecological Modelling, Tree species mixing of oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl./Quercus robur L.) and pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) has been shown to have positive effects on ecosystem service provision. From a management perspective, however, it is still uncertain which thinning regime provides the highest possible productivity of mixed oak–pine forests in the long term. Because of a lack of empirical studies dealing with thinning and species mixing effects on oak–pine forests, we simulated forest growth in order to test which thinning type and intensity may provide the highest productivity in the long-term. To achieve this, we simulated the growth of pure and mixed stands of oak and pine for 100 years in 23 triplets located on an ecological gradient across Europe. For this purpose, we applied four different growth simulators and compared their results: the distance-independent single-tree simulator PROGNAUS, the distance-dependent single-tree simulator SILVA, the gap model ForCEEPS, and the process-based simulator 3D-CMCC-FEM. We investigated the effects of species mixing and thinning from the upper (thinning from above) and lower tail (thinning from below) of the diameter distribution by reducing the stand basal area to 50 and 80% of the maximum basal area. We compared simulated results of the relative volume productivity of mixed versus pure stands and of thinned versus unthinned stands to empirical results previously obtained on the same set of triplets. Simulated relative volume productivity ranged between 61 and 156%, although extremes of 10% and of 300% could be observed. We found the relative volume productivity to be influenced by stand age, but not by stand density, except for PROGNAUS. Relative volume productivity did not increase with the site water supply of the triplet location. Highest long-term productivity for oak, pine and oak–pine stands can be expected in consequence of thinning from above, but the effect of thinning intensity differed between simulators. Thinning effects were positively affected by stand density, but not by stand age, except for thinning from above predicted by PROGNAUS. Predicted thinning effects showed good approximation of results from thinning experiments for oak, but not for pine stands. We hypothesize the results might be caused by the insufficient simulator representation of climate and its interaction with other site variables and stand structure. Further work is needed to reduce the revealed limitations of the existing growth models, as we currently see no alternative to such kind of studies and simulators., The authors thank the European Union for funding the project “Mixed species forest management. Lowering risk, increasing resilience (REFORM)” under the framework of Sumforest ERA-NET. The authors from Austria also thank the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism for supporting the establishment of the Austrian triplet plots and for covering the work expenses of Markus Engel within the project ”Forstwirtschaft mit Mischwäldern – geringes Risiko, hohe Widerstandskraft – REFORM” under the grant number 101199. All contributors thank their national funding institutions to establish, measure and analyze data from the triplets. Maude Toïgo and Xavier Morin thank François de Coligny and Nicolas Beudez for their help in the development of the ForCEEPS model. Antonio Tomao, Carlo Trotta and Anna Barbati thank Alessio Collalti for his support and suggestions about the simulations with the 3D-CMCC-FEM model.

Surface biomass characterization plays a key role in wildfire management. It allows classifying vegetation fuels flammability for fire risk analysis, to define silvicultural prescriptions for fire hazard reduction, to plan prescribed burning, or to model fire behavior and its effects, such as greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. To facilitate fuel classification and analysis of potential fire behavior and effects in Italy, we harmonized 634 measurements of surface wildland fuels from Alpine, temperate and Mediterranean environments. The dataset provides quantitative data for duff, fine dead fuels and downed woody material, live grasses and shrubs fuel components. Surface fuel data were harmonized by subdividing loads (Mg ha-1) to standard size classes for dead (0-6, 6-25 and 25-75 mm) and live (0-6, 6-25 mm) fuels, collecting percent cover and depth/height (cm) of the various fuel components, and classifying observations into 19 fuelbed categories. To ensure comparability with existing vegetation classification systems, we classified each observation according to the European Fuel Map, the Corine Land Cover classes (level IV), the European Forest Types, and the forest categories of the Italian National Forest Inventory. The dataset and a photo description of each fuelbed category are available as Supplementary material. This dataset is the first step to develop several products at the national scale such as: (i) fuel type classification and mapping; (ii) carbon stock and wildfire emission estimates; (iii) calibration of fuel models for the simulation of fire behavior and effects.

Climate change is an unprecedented issue in modern times, with significant implications on the status of forest ecosystems and the multiple benefits they provide. Climate change is also a dynamic and complex issue that increases uncertainty about what future forests will look like. Because of these unpredictable effects, forest managers could benefit from monitoring, rather than modelling, tools to assess the effect of management on the status and trends of forest resources. Sustainable Forest Management is based on the principle of maintaining and enhancing the long-term health of forest ecosystems while providing environmental, economic, social, and cultural opportunities for current and future generations. The objective of the FRESh LIFE project is to demonstrate the possible integration of remote sensing technologies, in order to provide high resolution spatial information on selected SFM indicators under Forest Europe process, at the forest management unit scale. In this study we present the activities of the FRESh LIFE project carried out in a Mediterranean study area (Central Italy) to create a Forest Information System (DSS). Forest inventory data and high resolution remote sensing data acquired by drones (UAV) were used to produced maps of SFM Indicators. These maps were implemented in the Forest Information System to support forest managers in the decision making process

The importance of mixed forests is increasingly recognized on a scientific level, due to their greater productivity and efficiency in resource use, compared to pure stands. However, a reliable quantification of the actual spatial extent of mixed stands on a fine spatial scale is still lacking. Indeed, classification and mapping of mixed populations, especially with semi-automatic procedures, has been a challenging issue up to date. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Very-High-Resolution imagery (VHR) to detect and map mixed forests of broadleaves and coniferous trees with a Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) of 500 m2. This study evaluates segmentation-based classification paired with non-parametric method K- nearest-neighbors (K-NN), trained with a dataset independent from the validation one. The forest area mapped as mixed forest canopies in the study area amounts to 11%, with an overall accuracy being equal to 85% and K of 0.78. Better levels of user and producer accuracies (85–93%) are reached in conifer and broadleaved dominated stands. The study findings demonstrate that the very high resolution images (0.20 m of spatial resolutions) can be reliably used to detect the fine-grained pattern of rare mixed forests, thus supporting the monitoring and management of forest resources also on fine spatial scales.

Urban expansion increases the need for, and pressure on, green areas. Reforestation projects in the rural–urban fringe represent an opportunity for enhancing the environmental quality of peri-urban spaces and a means to contribute to cities carbon neutrality policies. Yet, relatively little information exists regarding the long term (10–25 years) survival and growth rate in urban and peri-urban plantations. This paper reports and discusses the results achieved by a reforestation in the peri-urban space of Rome (Italy), 25 years after its establishment. The plantation has been periodically surveyed between 6 and 24 years of age by means of continuous inventories, with the aim of monitoring growth dynamics. Permanent sample plots have been investigated and stratified by tree species composition (broadleaves vs. conifers, single vs. multispecies) for data analysis. On the whole, plantations show suitable results in terms of rate of growth, carbon storage and uptake, especially in coniferous and mixed stands. The average stand volume of the forest plantation, currently ranges from one-and-a third to one-and-a-half times the average values estimated for natural high forest stands of the same age and species groups at country level. The species groups exhibit differential growth patterns over the observed period, that are mainly due to differences in the ecological traits of the planted trees. Ten years after the establishment, the average annual value of carbon uptake in conifer and mixed species group exceeds 10 Mg CO2 equivalent ha-1 year-1, a figure corresponding to 4 times the value of deciduous broadleaves (oaks and other species) and 1.5 times the value of evergreen oaks. Twenty years after the establishment, the average annual carbon uptake peaks to 25 Mg CO2 equivalent ha-1 year-1 in the mixed species group, exceeds 15 Mg CO2 equivalent ha-1 year-1 in the conifers, and ranks between 6 and 12.5 Mg CO2 equivalent ha-1 year-1 in the groups dominated by broadleaved species. Overall with a surface area just under 300 ha, the carbon uptake level of the Castel di Guido reforestation allows to offset the 0.04% of CO2 emissions of the city of Rome. Although the spatial coexistence of even-aged plantation blocks characterized by a range of ecological traits, is expected to ensure a more continuous carbon sequestration, being less susceptible to damage of any kind, the current lack of silvicultural management may also lead to degradation processes, by triggering e.g. fuel accumulation and, by consequence, forest fires. In this line, recommendations are provided in order to improve the ecological and functional efficiency of the investigated reforestation. The field experiment demonstrates, ultimately, the capability of the continuous forest inventory to take the pulse over several decades of tree species performance and carbon uptake levels in urban and peri-urban reforestations.

This study investigates the relationship between soil sealing and landscape conservation in four Mediterranean regions (Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome) characterized by different patterns of urban expansion. Per-capita sealed land, a landscape conservation index and selected territorial variables were considered into a multivariate exploratory framework aimed at assessing the correlation between land-use efficiency (based on the degree of soil sealing per-capita) and the quality of suburban landscape. A population density gradient with intensity of sealed land decreasing with the distance from the central city was observed in compact urban regions such as Athens and Barcelona. A mixed urban gradient was observed in Rome and Lisbon. In all the considered cities the spatial distribution of per-capita sealed land was not correlated with the urban gradient indicating that land consumption follows place-specific patterns irrespective of landscape quality. These findings suggest that urban containment and landscape conservation are policy targets requiring environmental measures irrespective of the prevailing morphology of the urban region (compact vs dispersed). In this context, green infrastructure planning is a promising tool for landscape conservation and the containment of soil sealing within fragile and dynamic contexts such as the wildland-urban interface.

Forest expansion into formerly agricultural land plays a relevant role for generating carbon sinks eligible under afforestation activities in the Kyoto Protocol (KP) carbon accounting framework. This paper provides a methodological framework for the multi-temporal assessment of carbon accumulated in these new forest stands, at the reference years of the KP commitment periods: remote sensing analyses, integrating optical imagery and airborne laser scanning data with field survey, are combined with the carbon simulation model CO2FIX to project carbon changes. The approach is applied to a case study in the central Apennines (Italy) to assess the carbon sink associated to these new forests at the years 2008,2012 and 2020. The approach is based on forest cover change detection and growing stock mapping,while the multi-temporal carbon sink analysis is performed by means of the CO2FIX model. In the considered test area, the results highlight a compound annual rate of forest expansion equal to 0.26% for the period 1990–2012. The overall carbon stored by the new stands is 21.1 Mg ha 1 (relative standard error less than 10%) at the year 2012, projected to reach 33.5 Mg ha 1 at the year 2020. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.journals.elsevier.com/

Forest ecosystems are fundamental for the terrestrial biosphere as they deliver multiple essential ecosystem services (ES). In environmental management, understanding ES distribution and interactions and assessing the economic value of forest ES represent future challenges. In this study, we developed a spatially explicit method based on a multi-scale approach (MiMoSe-Multiscale Mapping of ecosystem services) to assess the current and future potential of a given forest area to provide ES. To do this we modified and improved the InVEST model in order to adapt input data and simulations to the context of Mediterranean forest ecosystems. Specifically, we integrated a GIS-based model, scenario model, and economic valuation to investigate two ES (wood production and carbon sequestration) and their trade-offs in a test area located in Molise region (Central Italy). Spatial information and trade-off analyses were used to assess the influence of alternative forest management scenarios on investigated services. Scenario A was designed to describe the current Business as Usual approach. Two alternative scenarios were designed to describe management approaches oriented towards nature protection (scenario B) or wood production (scenario C) and compared to scenario A. Management scenarios were simulated at the scale of forest management units over a 20-year time period. Our results show that forest management influenced ES provision and associated benefits at the regional scale. In the test area, the Total Ecosystem Services Value of the investigated ES increases 85% in scenario B and decreases 82% in scenario C, when compared to scenario A. Our study contributes to the ongoing debate about trade-offs and synergies between carbon sequestration and wood production benefits associated with socio-ecological systems. The MiMoSe approach can be replicated in other contexts with similar characteristics, thus providing a useful basis for the projection of benefits from forest ecosystems over the future L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.com/locate/envres

Forest canopy gaps are important to ecosystem dynamics. Depending on tree species, small canopy openings may be associated with intra-crown porosity and with space among crowns. Yet, literature on the relationships between very fine-scaled patterns of canopy openings and biodiversity features is limited. This research explores the possibility of: (1) mapping forest canopy gaps from a very high spatial resolution orthomosaic (10 cm), processed from a versatile unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imaging platform, and (2) deriving patch metrics that can be tested as covariates of variables of interest for forest biodiversity monitoring. The orthomosaic was imaged from a test area of 240 ha of temperate deciduous forest types in Central Italy, containing 50 forest inventory plots each of 529 m2 in size. Correlation and linear regression techniques were used to explore relationships between patch metrics and understory (density, development, and species diversity) or forest habitat biodiversity variables (density of micro-habitat bearing trees, vertical species profile, and tree species diversity). The results revealed that small openings in the canopy cover (75% smaller than 7 m2) can be faithfully extracted from UAV red, green, and blue bands (RGB) imagery, using the red band and contrast split segmentation. The strongest correlations were observed in the mixed forests (beech and turkey oak) followed by intermediate correlations in turkey oak forests, followed by the weakest correlations in beech forests. Moderate to strong linear relationships were found between gap metrics and understory variables in mixed forest types, with adjusted R2 from linear regression ranging from 0.52 to 0.87. Equally strong correlations in the same forest types were observed for forest habitat biodiversity variables (with adjusted R2 ranging from 0.52 to 0.79), with highest values found for density of trees with microhabitats and vertical species profile. In conclusion, this research highlights that UAV remote sensing can potentially provide covariate surfaces of variables of interest for forest biodiversity monitoring, conventionally collected in forest inventory plots. By integrating the two sources of data, these variables can be mapped over small forest areas with satisfactory levels of accuracy, at a much higher spatial resolution than would be possible by field-based forest inventory solely.

Human-started fires represent the vast majority of wildfires in Mediterranean countries. The current expansion of human settlements into fire-prone territories has led to the creation of landscapes where anthropogenic developments merge with wildland areas. In this context, understanding the role of distance from built-up areas in shaping coarse-scale wildfire spatial patterns is a major concern. Proximity to cities has become an important factor that may increase the probability of wildfires in wildland-urban interfaces. To this issue, we developed an assessment of wildfire distribution in Italy over an 8-year period (2007–2014) to quantify fire occurrence and recurrence as a function of distance from built-up areas. Our findings suggest a positive relationship between the distance from built-up areas and fire incidence (i.e., ratio between burnt forest area and total forest area), whereas a negative relation was found between distance from built-up areas and fire frequency and recurrence; thus, there are more recurring yet smaller sized-fires near built-up areas. Fifty percent of fire events and more than two-thirds of recurrent fires occur within 200 m from built-up areas. On the other hand, the considerable amount of such fire events never reaches an incidence higher than 10% in flat areas and 30% in hilly and mountainous areas. More broadly, quantitative knowledge about where fires occur is essential to ensure appropriate fire management throughout large territories. With this in mind, our investigation intends to provide a solid base for further studies in landscapes with a high component of human-dominated land use.

Research into mixed-forests has increased substantially in the last decades but the extent to which the new knowledge generated meets practitioners' concerns and is adequately transmitted to them is unknown. Here we provide the current state of knowledge and future research directions with regards to 10 questions about mixed-forest functioning and management identified and selected by a range of European forest managers during an extensive participatory process. The set of 10 questions were the highest ranked questions from an online prioritization exercise involving 168 managers from 22 different European countries. In general, the topics of major concern for forest managers coincided with the ones that are at the heart of most research projects. They covered important issues related to the management of mixed forests and the role of mixtures for the stability of forests faced with environmental changes and the provision of ecosystem services to society. Our analysis showed that the current scientific knowledge about these questions was rather variable and particularly low for those related to the management of mixed forests over time and the associated costs. We also found that whereas most research projects have sought to evaluate whether mixed forests are more stable or provide more goods and services than monocultures, there is still little information on the underlying mechanisms and trade-offs behind these effects. Similarly, we identified a lack of knowledge on the spatio-temporal scales at which the effects of mixtures on the resistance and adaptability to environmental changes are operating. Our analysis may help researchers to identify what knowledge needs to be better transferred and to better design future research initiatives meeting practitioner's concerns. This article is based upon work from COST Action FP1206, EuMIXFOR, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The authors want to specially thank the large number of forest managers that were involved in the participatory process and kindly responded to the surveys. The first author also thanks the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for funding the project AGL2015-70425-R which partly supported his contribution to this study. MM acknowledges support by grant IUT21-4 of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and DS support by project III 43007 (2011–2017) from Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia.

International audience; AbstractKey messageThe outcome of the present study leads to the application of a spatially explicit rule-based expert system (RBES) algorithm aimed at automatically classifying forest areas according to the European Forest Types (EFT) system of nomenclature at pan-European scale level. With the RBES, the EFT system of nomenclature can be now easily implemented for objective, replicable, and automatic classification of field plots for forest inventories or spatial units (pixels or polygons) for thematic mapping.ContextForest Types classification systems are aimed at stratifying forest habitats. Since 2006, a common scheme for classifying European forests into 14 categories and 78 types (European Forest Types, EFT) exists.AimsThis work presents an innovative method and automated classification system that, in an objective and replicable way, can accurately classify a given forest habitat according to the EFT system of nomenclature.MethodsA rule-based expert system (RBES) was adopted as a transparent approach after comparison with the well-known Random Forest (RF) classification system. The experiment was carried out based on the information acquired in the field in 2010 ICP level I plots in 17 European countries. The accuracy of the automated classification is evaluated by comparison with an independent classification of the ICP plots into EFT carried out during the BioSoil project field survey. Finally, the RBES automated classifier was tested also for a pixel-based classification of a pan-European distribution map of beech-dominated forests.ResultsThe RBES successfully classified 94% of the plots, against a 92% obtained with RF. When applied to the mapped domain, the accuracy obtained with the RBES for the beech forest map classification was equal to 95%.ConclusionThe RBES algorithm successfully automatically classified field plots and map pixels on the basis of the EFT system of nomenclature. The EFT system of nomenclature can be now easily and objectively implemented in operative transnational European forest monitoring programs.

Italian stone pine is a landmark of Mediterranean coastal areas. Today, pinewoods represent environmental amenity areas at risk, being under siege from intensive urbanisation. We present an emblematic case study in Rome’s coastal strip where urban encroachment around pinewoods is somewhat overlooked by urban planning, which may be threatening for their conservation. We studied: (i) changes in land use intensification in the pinewoods’ surroundings over the past 60 years (1949–2008), by means of a synthetic index of landscape conservation (ILC) ranging from 0 (maximum level of anthropogenic landscape alteration) to 1 (maximum level of landscape naturalness); (ii) influence of different landscape protection level on land use intensification. Findings show that in areas with low levels of landscape protection, the ILC had been decreasing in the first 100-m surrounding pinewoods, and within the 1-km buffer. The ILC had been rather stable within areas with high levels of landscape protection. Lessons learnt have implications for spatial development strategies to protect coastal pinewoods from external pressures due to future (planned) urban densification in their surroundings.

Fuel flammability is defined as the relative ease with which a fuel will ignite and burn with a flame; different forest types have different intrinsic “baseline” flammabilities, depending on the susceptibility to burn of the main tree species that build up the forest cover. In this perspective, we apply a forest-type based approach to classify and map the flammability level of the forests in Italy. Baseline forest type-based flammability values provided at European level have been assigned to a national forest types map, derived from Corine Land Cover 2006; flammability values have been then further calibrated against the Burned Area Selection Ratio, a measure of the actual incidence of wildfires among different forest types. Accordingly, a calibrated flammability index was derived by simple linear regression, so that predicted flammability more accurately reflects observed fire incidence among different forest types in Italy. Findings show that the flammability of forest types ranges from low to high: on average, the 17% of the forest cover has medium to high flammability, with wide regional variability; notably, in four Regions (Sardegna, Sicilia, Puglia, Calabria) over one third of total forest area has medium to high flammability. Large scale mapping of forest flammability is crucial to define long-term priorities among forest areas as to how to distribute fire management effort: areas falling into medium to high flammability classes should be given priority for implementing fuel management treatments in order to mitigate fire hazard from the stand to the landscape scale.

Since 2003 the MCPFE-Forest Europe process has adopted a set of Pan-European Indicators that has become a policy instrument to monitor, evaluate and report progress towards sustainable forest management (SFM). Two new experimental tools have been introduced in the framework of the «State of Forests and Sustainable Forest Management in Europe 2011»: (i) pilot reporting by 14 classes of European Forest Types (EFTs) for a selection of quantitative SFM indicators; (ii) key parameters for monitoring progress for all quantitative indicators. The main aim of this paper is to discuss whether reporting by EFTs of key forest biodiversity-related parameters can improve the way forest biodiversity conservation policy targets are addressed and evaluated in Europe. Accordingly, data on SFM indicators for a sample of European countries (ranging from 6 to 28, depending on indicators) have been processed and analyzed in a pilot study using a question-driven approach, so that information from monitoring could direct policy action. The main findings show that: – forest area has been significantly increasing (>0.2% per year) in the period 2000–2010; however, annual changes in forest cover by EFTs reveal a polyedric picture at country level, in terms of gain and loss of forest habitat dominated by native and introduced tree species; – old even aged forests (>140 yrs) are fairly consistent (>5%) only in a few countries and limited to specific EFTs; – in naturally species-poor EFTs (e.g. Boreal forest, Alpine coniferous forest, Broadleaved evergreen forest) single species stands cover from 15–100% of the total area, while in species rich EFTs (e.g. Mesophytic deciduous forest, Thermophilous deciduous forest) the maximum share of single species is in the order of 30%; – deadwood amount ranges from 9 to 26 m3 ha 1, a value which is however far below natural reference values found in European old growth forests (160 m3 ha 1). Findings from this test demonstrate that reporting of key forest biodiversity-related parameters by EFTs enables question-driven monitoring in many ways: (i) reporting by EFTs helps to interpret the variability in the values taken by the indicators explicitly considering ecological differences between EFTs; (ii) temporal trends in forest area can be interpreted in terms of expansion or loss of forest habitats dominated by native and introduced tree species; (iii) progress in implementing biodiversity friendly strategies (e.g. increasing share of old even aged forests, promotion of multispecies stands and accumulation of deadwood) can be quantitatively evaluated against baselines. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.sciencedirect.com

Map of the natural and semi-natural environments and forest types map for the Latium region (Italy). The paper presents the main methodological aspects and the most important results achieved in the implementation of the “Map of natural and semi-natural environments” and of the “Forest types map” in Lazio region at a scale of 1:10.000. The project was carried out for the Agenzia dei Parchi and for the Area Foreste of Regione Lazio through a collaboration between e-GEOS , the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the University of Tuscia and Forestlab Centre , a spin- off of the University of Molise . The project is based on the integrated use of high-resolution satellite imagery and ADS40 false-color infrared digital orthophotos and led to the creation of two maps geometrically and thematically consistent with each other. The “Map of natural and semi-natural environments” is integrated with the pre-existing land use map of the Lazio region deepening the thematic detail up to the 6th Corine level. The “Forest types map” is based on a typological system organized in 17 categories and 36 forest types .

Forest ecosystems contain large stocks of carbon sequestered in biomass and soil, that could either increase or decrease depending on forest management practices and disturbances. This paper, starting from processes of carbon mobilization within different forest carbon pools (aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil), highlights, on a quantitative basis, to what extent managed forests, forest plantations and trees outside forest can play a role as carbon sinks in Italy. Practical perspectives of forest management are outlined, including prevention of disturbances, renaturalization, land restoration, and establishment of forest tree crops and trees outside forest on farmland.

Repeated burning in a short return period (< 3–5 years) may significantly contribute to land degradation in Mediterranean countries. We apply logistic regression analysis to model spatial relationships between reburning and site (topographic) and landscape-level factors (land use pattern); forest areas burned twice at least between 2006 and 2009 in the Italian peninsula are used as a case study. Few landscape factors prove to be correlated with the probability of fire recurrence, and the overall logistic regression model explains 24% of the variation in the fire recurrence. This fact is not surprising since human factors are known to be the biggest determinant of wildfire events in Mediterranean countries such as Italy. Nonetheless, findings from this exploratory study prove to be qualitatively helpful to identify at least landscape drivers, easily quantifiable and available on a national scale, significantly affecting short-term fire recurrence (i.e. slope roughness, exposure, distance from the nearest water body, pre-fire dominant forest type). L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.tandfonline.com

The conifer reforestations established during the last century in many mountainous areas of Central and Southern Italy allowed the restoration of thousands of hectares of degraded bare lands. During the last sixty years many social and environmental functions were added to such forests and now they require a multifunctional management approach. A 100-years old reforestation with black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) located in a mountain tourist area and within a Natura 2000 site in Central Italy was taken into consideration as a case study. The stands, although even-aged and dense, have a diversified structure as a consequence of localized wind throws and the growth of an underlayer of hardwoods. The traditional, timber production-oriented management based on strip clear cutting has shown to be inapplicable in such a context. Systemic silviculture grasps this challenge as it assumes as fundamental management goal the search for the functional efficiency of the forest ecosystem. In such a perspective silvicultural practices are guided by an adaptive approach, based on trial and error, rather than on so-called normalisation schemes. Starting from the concept that forest is a complex, self-regulating, dynamically changing system,a management trajectory is proposed to foster the gradual succession of the pine stands towards different types of pure and mixed hardwood forest according to site conditions. The basic silvicultural criterion is to reduce gradually the pine cover by thinning and opening of small gaps in order to increase tree age and size diversity. The public incentives necessary to implement this sort of management are justified by the goal of increasing the functionality and resilience of the forest system: both elements can reduce the risk of damages for the forests. This paper aims to provide general considerations on such issues in the form of a commentary discussion with reference to the considered case study. I rimboschimenti di conifere realizzati durante il secolo scorso in molte aree montuose del Centro e Sud Italia hanno permesso il recupero di migliaia di ettari di terreni nudi soggetti a erosione. Negli ultimi 60 anni, in aggiunta a quella protettiva, altre funzioni sociali e ambientali sono state attribuite a tali popolamenti per la cui gestione è ora richiesto un approccio multifunzionale. Come caso di studio è stato preso in considerazione un rimboschimento di 100 anni di pino nero (Pinus nigra Arnold ) situato in una zona turistica in Abruzzo, all’interno di un sito Natura 2000. I popolamenti, sebbene nel complesso puri e omogenei, presentano a tratti struttura diversificata a causa di schianti da vento localizzati e il conseguente sviluppo di uno strato inferiore di latifoglie autoctone in corrispondenza delle aperture della copertura. I tradizionali metodi di pianificazione forestale, orientati alla produzione legnosa e basati sul taglio raso a strisce per favorire la rinnovazione del pino, sono risultati inapplicabili in un tale contesto a causa della scarsa redditività della coltivazione. Viene qui proposto un diverso approccio alla gestione dei rimboschimenti, basato sull’adozione della selvicoltura sistemica, ponendo come obiettivo fondamentale la ricerca dell’efficienza funzionale dell’ecosistema forestale. In questa prospettiva le pratiche selvicolturali sono guidate da un approccio adattativo, basato sul metodo per tentativi ed eliminazione degli errori, piuttosto che sui cosiddetti sistemi di normalizzazione. Partendo dal concetto che il bosco è un sistema complesso, capace di auto-regolazione e in continuo cambiamento, l’articolo propone una traiettoria di gestione in grado di favorire la graduale successione della pineta verso diversi tipi forestali in base alle condizioni micro-stazionali presenti nell’area rimboschita. Il criterio colturale è di ridurre gradualmente la copertura del pino mediante diradamenti e l’apertura di piccole buche per aumentare nel tempo la diversità di specie, età e dimensione degli alberi senza bruschi mutamenti del paesaggio. Gli incentivi pubblici necessari per attuare questo tipo di interventi sono giustificati dall’obiettivo di aumentare la funzionalità e la resilienza del sistema forestale: entrambi gli elementi possono ridurre il rischio di danni per le foreste. Questo lavoro si propone di fornire considerazioni generali su tali questioni nella forma di una discussione con riferimento al caso di studio analizzato.

This study presents an automatic methodology based on airborne laser scanner (ALS) data, which allows the mapping of forests, using quantitative criteria typical of forest definitions, i.e. mini- mum threshold for the height of trees, canopy cover, forest area size, and width. Interactions between forest and other land uses are explored by the methodology for the definition of forest borderlines using an additional criterion; this criterion is the dis- tance-discontinuity (DD), which establishes a minimum width (MW) for portions of territory categorized by land uses different from the forest. The proposed forest mapping approach intro- duces also a fuzzy algorithm to assess the canopy cover, thereby enhancing the positional accuracy in the delineation of the forest borderline. This methodology has a very flexible mapping approach with the potential to address the many forest definitions existing worldwide. The evaluation and the improvement of the methodology are particularly encouraged by its release as an open source tool. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.tandfonline.com

A correct characterization of the status and trend of forest condition is essential to support reporting processes at national and international level. An international forest condition monitoring has been implemented in Europe since 1987 under the auspices of the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests). The monitoring is based on harmonized methodologies, with individual countries being responsible for its implementation. Due to inconsis- tencies and problems in sampling design, however, the ICP Forests network is not able to produce reliable quantitative estimates of forest condition at European and sometimes at country level. This paper proposes (1) a set of requirements for status and change assessment and (2) a harmonized sampling strategy able to provide unbiased and consistent estimators of forest condition parameters and of their changes at both country and European level. Under the assumption that a common definition of forest holds among European countries, monitoring objectives, parameters of concern and accuracy indexes are stated. On the basis of fixed-area plot sampling performed independently in each country, an unbiased and consistent estimator of forest defoliation indexes is obtained at both country and European level, together with conservative estimators of their sampling variance and power in the detection of changes. The strategy adopts a probabilistic sampling scheme based on fixed-area plots selected by means of systematic or stratified schemes. Operative guidelines for its application are provided. L'articolo è diponibile sul sito dell'editore www.springerlink.com

Due to a long-standing history of human impact, it is rare to find in Europe old-growth stands associated to primary forests; the term “old-growthness” is more appropriate to assess old-growth forests in European countries: i.e. the degree to which forest stands, which may or may not have been impacted by humans, express the structural variability commonly found in old-growth forests. The paper focuses on operational methods to assess and promote old-growthness in countries, like Italy, where old-growthness detection is a difficult task because of the scarcity of “relatively old” forest stands. Lessons learnt from research experiences carried out in Italy are reviewed; research findings mostly come from unmanaged tracts of previously managed forest stands that have reached structural and compositional traits typical of the mature stage of forest dynamics. A commentary discussion is provided on the following topics: (i) how to operationally assess old-growthness of forest stands, by coupling remot...

Il continuo aumento della domanda di energia e la modesta autosufficienza energetica spingono le politiche energetiche dell’Italia, nel quadro degli impegni 20-20-20, verso un crescente impiego di biomasse forestali in progetti di produzione energetica delocalizzata e sostenibile. Per identificare opzioni progettuali in grado di soddisfare in modo sostenibile la domanda di energie rinnovabili è necessario produrre stime sufficientemente attendibili sulla disponibilità di biomasse forestali destinabili all’uso energetico, definendo criteri di sostenibilità nel prelievo calibrati sul contesto ambientale e socio-economico locale. In tale logica, il lavoro presenta un caso di studio finalizzato a quantificare nel comprensorio forestale di circa 27.000 ha dell’Alta valle dell’Aniene (Italia centrale) la quantità di biomassa forestale destinabile alla produzione di energia termica. La quantità annua di biomassa forestale destinabile alla produzione di energia, stimata attraverso un modello conservativo basato su criteri di utilizzazione forestale sostenibile, è pari a circa il 18% (21.000 t s.s. anno-1) della produttività annua delle foreste del comprensorio e i quantitativi unitari di biomassa ritraibile risultano pari a circa 2 t s.s. ha-1anno-1. La disponibilità complessiva di biomassa nelle aree maggiormente idonee sotto il profilo dell’accessibilità è di quasi 9.000 t s.s. anno-1, quantitativo sufficiente per implementare una filiera locale di produzione del cippato in grado di alimentare alcune decine di impianti di riscaldamento di edifici pubblici e privati. Italy’s energy policy, in the framework of the 20-20-20 commitments, is oriented towards the increasing exploitation of wood biomass for local energy production projects; this is due to rising demand for energy and low self-sufficiency of the country. To support renewable energy targets in a sustainable way, reliable estimates on the wood biomass technically available for energy production are needed, taking into account local environmental and socio-economic constraints. This paper presents a case study aimed at assessing the wood biomass technically available for energy generation. The sample area is the forest (approximately 27.000 ha) of the Upper valley of Aniene River (Central Italy). The annual amount of wood biomass available for energy generation is estimated using a conservative model. It is based on environmentalcompatible and sustainable wood harvesting criteria. The available wood biomass is approximately 18% (21.000 t s.s. year-1) of the total forest productivity of the area, corresponding to about 2 t s.s. ha-1year-1. The overall biomass available in the most accessible areas is nearly 9.000 t s.s. year-1. This would be enough to support the development of a local wood-fuel energy chain, to feed several heating plants of public and private buildings.

Statistically-designed inventories and biodiversity monitoring programs are gaining relevance for biological conservation and natural resources management. Mandated periodic surveys provide unique opportunities to identify and satisfy natural resources management information needs. However, this is not an end in itself but rather is the beginning of a process that should lead to sound decision-making in biodiversity conservation. Forest inventories are currently evolving towards multipurpose resource surveys and are broadening their scope in several directions: (i) expansion of the target population to include non-traditional attributes such as trees outside the forest and urban forests; (ii) forest carbon pools and carbon sequestration estimation; (iii) assessment of forest health; and (iv) inclusion of additional variables such as biodiversity attributes that are not directly related to timber assessment and wood harvesting. There is an on-going debate regarding the role of forest inventories in biodiversity assessment and monitoring. This paper presents a review on the topic that aims at providing updated knowledge on the current contribution of forest inventories to the assessment and monitoring of forest biodiversity conditions on a large scale. Specific objectives are fourfold: (i) to highlight the types of forest biodiversity indicators that can be estimated from data collected in the framework of standard forest inventories and the implications of different sampling methods on the estimation of the indicators; (ii) to outline current possibilities for harmonized estimation of biodiversity indicators in Europe from National Forest Inventory data; (iii) to show the added value for forest biodiversity monitoring of framing biodiversity indicators into ecologically meaningful forest type units; and (iv) to examine the potential of forest inventory sample data for estimating landscape biodiversity metrics.

BIOME-BGC is a bio-geochemical model capable of estimating the water, carbon and nitrogen fluxes and storages of terrestrial ecosystems. Previous research demonstrated that, after proper calibration of its ecophysiological parameters, the model can reproduce the main processes of Mediterranean forest types. The same investigations, however, indicated a model tendency to overestimate woody biomass accumulation. The current paper aims at modifying BIOME-BGC ecophysiological settings to improve the simulation of the woody compartment in Mediterranean forests. The modified ecophysiological parameter is the whole-plant mortality fraction (WPMF), which directly affects the amount of woody biomass stored. The optimal WPMFs of six main forest types in Tuscany are identified by forcing the model to reproduce the maximum standing volumes found in regional and local forest inventories. The effects of this operation are evaluated by comparing the model outputs produced using the original and modified settings to independent measurements from national forest inventories. The results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the modifications introduced and consolidate the methodological basis for extending the use of the modeling strategy to other Mediterranean areas.

Urban areas are continuously expanding today, extending their influence on an increasingly large proportion of woods and trees located in or nearby urban and urbanizing areas, the socalled urban forests. Although these forests have the potential for significantly improving the quality the urban environment and the well-being of the urban population, data to quantify the extent and characteristics of urban forests are still lacking or fragmentary on a large scale. In this regard, an expansion of the domain of multipurpose forest inventories like National Forest Inventories (NFIs) towards urban forests would be required. To this end, it would be convenient to exploit the same sampling scheme applied in NFIs to assess the basic features of urban forests. This paper considers approximately unbiased estimators of abundance and coverage of urban forests, together with estimators of the corresponding variances, which can be achieved from the first phase of most largescale forest inventories. A simulation study is carried out in order to check the performance of the considered estimators under various situations involving the spatial distribution of the urban forests over the study area. An application is worked out on the data from the Italian NFI. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.springer.com