Proposte metodologiche per l’identificazione e la caratterizzazione strutturale di boschi vetusti in ambiente appenninico: il caso del Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga
Author(s)
Di Paolo, Silvia
Date Issued
April 27, 2012
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
The old-growth forests evidence a unique opportunity to promote monitoring of biodiversity, ecological restoration and to preserve “natural records” for dendroclimatic studies. The knowledge about the old-growth forests will develop forest restoration projects aimed to restore old-growthness in secondary forests. This thesis aims to contribute the knowledge of old-growth forests in order to define the guiding principles for their identification and characterization. In particular, the first objective is to test methods for the identification and mapping of structurally complex forests through the support of optical remote sensing techniques. A second objective is to develop a protocol for the detection of the structural attributes. The ultimate goal is the identification of parameters meaningful and operationally useful to characterize potentially old-growth forests. A corollary objective of the work is the identification and the description of old-growth forests in the National Park of Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga (PNGSML, Abruzzo region, Italy). Identified and selected three old-growth forests in PNGSML, it was create a map of the old-growth areas using digital image processing and segmentation-based analysis. Two sampling protocols have been proposed for the detection of structural attributes. The choice of protocol for the optimum representation of the structure of each old-growth forests occurred as a result of an experiment. Through the integration of different knowledge, the methodological approach developed allowed to use GIS to map areas with potential old-growthness, to define and identify protocols for the detection and the monitoring as accurately as possible the reality and, finally, to describe the structure of the selected old-growth forests.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Ecologia forestale
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