Soil and forest regeneration after different extraction methods in coppice forests
Author(s)
Date Issued
2019
Type
article
Volume
454
Start Page
1
End Page
11
Journal
Abstract
Coppice is considered the oldest form of sustainable forest management in the Mediterranean area. Generally, it produces rapidly woody biomass and environmental benefits. This research was implemented through an experimental design based on two steps: analyzing the impact of silvicultural treatment (coppice with standards) and logging on forest soil and tree regeneration. It included the soil and regeneration recovery capacity of forests managed as coppice related to different logging systems and treatments applied over a six-year period. The findings demonstrated that tree species regeneration composition was not affected by silvicultural treatment and only slightly by harvesting system. Instead, the physical, chemical and biological soil features were only marginally affected by the silvicultural treatment applied, but strongly impacted by harvesting operations, with clear differences between the systems. The least damaging harvesting system was TLS (Tree Length System) followed by FTS (Full Tree System) and SWS (Short Wood System) that showed a more intense impact. This trend started only six months after harvesting and continued for more than 36 months post-harvesting in a lesser dynamic. The recovery of coppicing was almost complete 36 months after harvesting, without substantial differences between logging systems. Recovery from logging showed a clear positive trend, but 52 months after harvesting only the TLS area had completely recovered. For FTS and SWS, recovery occurred but was very weak.
Subjects
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Name
pagination_FORECO_117666.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1020.27 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
38e8ec225e398d17a8a2079e401a7067
Project(s)
This work was supportedfinancially by the Italian Ministry forEducation, University and Research (MIUR) (Law 232/2016, ItalianUniversity Departments of Excellence)–UNITUS-DAFNE WP3