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Abstract
Growth and productivity of forests are important indicators for understanding the general condition and health of forests. It is very important that indicators detected during monitoring procedures afford an opportunity for direct or indirect evaluation of forest productivity and its natural and anthropogenic changes. Analysis of the U.S. Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) crown indicators showed that primary crown indicators are not enough for biological interpretation of collected data and estimation of potential tree growth. The length of crown is necessary for calculating meaningful crown indicators; consequently, measurements of tree height should be included into a FHM sampling design. Statistically reliable tree height measurements as well as basal area estimation are necessary for evaluation of tree volume and biomass. Results of a pilot study on relationships between tree growth and crown indicators, and a multiple regression model for assessment of potential productivity of trees based on primary and composite crown indicators are presented in this paper. New composite crown indicators are developed to increase interpretability of FHM data. A modification of FHM tree height, basal area measurement and estimation procedures is proposed.
Parent Publication
Citation
Kuknys, Romualdas; Augustaitis, Algirdas. 1998. Forest health monitoring indicators and their interpretability: a Lithuanian case study. In: Bytnerowicz, Andrzej; Arbaugh, Michael J.; Schilling, Susan L., tech. coords. Proceedings of the international symposium on air pollution and climate change effects on forest ecosystems. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-166. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 313-320
