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A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 found that forests covered 4.06 billion hectares, or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020.
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. Forest management plays an essential role in the creation and modification of habitats and affects ecosystem services provisioning.
Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and maintenance operations of the urban forest. Urban forestry advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure. Urban foresters plant and maintain trees, support appropriate tree and forest preservation, conduct research and promote the many benefits trees provide. Urban forestry is practiced by municipal and commercial arborists, municipal and utility foresters, environmental policymakers, city planners, consultants, educators, researchers and community activists.
An old-growth forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines primary forests as naturally regenerated forests of native tree species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activity and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed. One-third of the world's forests are primary forests. Old-growth features include diverse tree-related structures that provide diverse wildlife habitats that increases the biodiversity of the forested ecosystem. Virgin or first-growth forests are old-growth forests that have never been logged. The concept of diverse tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, greatly varying tree heights and diameters, and diverse tree species and classes and sizes of woody debris.
A bioindicator is any species or group of species whose function, population, or status can reveal the qualitative status of the environment. The most common indicator species are animals. For example, copepods and other small water crustaceans that are present in many water bodies can be monitored for changes that may indicate a problem within their ecosystem. Bioindicators can tell us about the cumulative effects of different pollutants in the ecosystem and about how long a problem may have been present, which physical and chemical testing cannot.
An air quality index (AQI) is an indicator developed by government agencies to communicate to the public how polluted the air currently is or how polluted it is forecast to become. As air pollution levels rise, so does the AQI, along with the associated public health risk. Children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory or cardiovascular problems are typically the first groups affected by poor air quality. When the AQI is high, governmental bodies generally encourage people to reduce physical activity outdoors, or even avoid going out altogether. When wildfires result in a high AQI, the use of a mask outdoors and an air purifier indoors are also encouraged.
An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose ecosystems are also inherited from wilderness leftovers, urban forests often lack amenities like public bathrooms, paved paths, or sometimes clear borders which are distinct features of parks. Care and management of urban forests is called urban forestry. Urban forests can be privately and publicly owned. Some municipal forests may be located outside of the town or city to which they belong.
Selection cutting, also known as selection system, is the silvicultural practice of harvesting trees in a way that moves a forest stand towards an uneven-aged or all-aged condition, or 'structure'. Using stocking models derived from the study of old growth forests, selection cutting, also known as 'selection system', or 'selection silviculture', manages the establishment, continued growth and final harvest of multiple age classes of trees within a stand. A closely related approach to forest management is Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), which makes use of selection systems to achieve a permanently irregular stand structure.
Land cover is the physical material at the land surface of Earth. Land covers include flora, concrete, built structures, bare ground, and temporary water. Earth cover is the expression used by ecologist Frederick Edward Clements that has its closest modern equivalent being vegetation. The expression continues to be used by the United States Bureau of Land Management.
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, forest protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for timber, aesthetics, recreation, urban values, water, wildlife, inland and nearshore fisheries, wood products, plant genetic resources, and other forest resource values. Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.
In the context of energy production, biomass is matter from recently living organisms which is used for bioenergy production. Examples include wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues including straw, and organic waste from industry and households. Wood and wood residues is the largest biomass energy source today. Wood can be used as a fuel directly or processed into pellet fuel or other forms of fuels. Other plants can also be used as fuel, for instance maize, switchgrass, miscanthus and bamboo. The main waste feedstocks are wood waste, agricultural waste, municipal solid waste, and manufacturing waste. Upgrading raw biomass to higher grade fuels can be achieved by different methods, broadly classified as thermal, chemical, or biochemical.
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances called pollutants in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. It is also the contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment either by chemical, physical, or biological agents that alters the natural features of the atmosphere. There are many different types of air pollutants, such as gases, particulates and biological molecules. Air pollution can cause diseases, allergies, and even death to humans; it can also cause harm to other living organisms such as animals and crops, and may damage the natural environment or built environment. Air pollution can be caused by both human activities and natural phenomena.
Ultrafine particles (UFPs) are particulate matter of nanoscale size (less than 0.1 μm or 100 nm in diameter). Regulations do not exist for this size class of ambient air pollution particles, which are far smaller than the regulated PM10 and PM2.5 particle classes and are believed to have several more aggressive health implications than those classes of larger particulates. Although they remain largely unregulated, the World Health Organization has published good practice statements regarding measuring UFPs.
Forest inventory is the systematic collection of data and forest information for assessment or analysis. An estimate of the value and possible uses of timber is an important part of the broader information required to sustain ecosystems. When taking forest inventory the following are important things to measure and note: species, diameter at breast height (DBH), height, site quality, age, and defects. From the data collected one can calculate the number of trees per acre, the basal area, the volume of trees in an area, and the value of the timber. Inventories can be done for other reasons than just calculating the value. A forest can be cruised to visually assess timber and determine potential fire hazards and the risk of fire. The results of this type of inventory can be used in preventive actions and also awareness. Wildlife surveys can be undertaken in conjunction with timber inventory to determine the number and type of wildlife within a forest. The aim of the statistical forest inventory is to provide comprehensive information about the state and dynamics of forests for strategic and management planning. Merely looking at the forest for assessment is called taxation.
The environmental impact of paper are significant, which has led to changes in industry and behaviour at both business and personal levels. With the use of modern technology such as the printing press and the highly mechanized harvesting of wood, disposable paper became a relatively cheap commodity, which led to a high level of consumption and waste. The rise in global environmental issues such as air and water pollution, climate change, overflowing landfills and clearcutting have all lead to increased government regulations. There is now a trend towards sustainability in the pulp and paper industry as it moves to reduce clear cutting, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel consumption and clean up its influence on local water supplies and air pollution.
Particulates or atmospheric particulate matter are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The term aerosol commonly refers to the particulate/air mixture, as opposed to the particulate matter alone. Sources of particulate matter can be natural or anthropogenic. They have impacts on climate and precipitation that adversely affect human health, in ways additional to direct inhalation.
DART is a 3D radiative transfer model, designed for scientific research, in particular remote sensing. Developed at CESBIO since 1992, DART model was patented in 2003. It is freeware for scientific activities.
The Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) reports on the status and trends of the world's forest resources. It is led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
AirQ+ is a free software for Windows and Linux operating systems developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. The program calculates the magnitude of several health effects associated to exposure to the most relevant air pollutants in a given population. AirQ+ has been used in the BreatheLife campaign and in numerous studies aimed at measuring long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter PM2.5. The first version of the program, AirQ, was distributed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program in 1999, followed by another version of AirQ for Windows in 2000, 2004 and 2005. AirQ+ 1.0 was released in May 2016. A substantial difference between AirQ and AirQ+ is that AirQ+ contains a new graphical user interface with several help texts and various features to input and analyse data and illustrate results. AirQ+ version AirQ+ 1.2 was released in May 2017, followed by 1.3 in October 2018. Version 2.0 was released in November 2019, version 2.1 in May 2021 and version 2.2 in March 2023. It is available in the official languages of the WHO EURO region: English, French, German and Russian. A Polish version of AirQ+ is also available since 2023 and Spanish, Arab and Parsi versions are planned to be available in 2024.
Assisted migration is the movement of populations or species by humans from one territory to another in response to climate change. This is the definition offered in a nontechnical document published by the United States Forest Service in 2023, suggesting that this form of climate adaptation "could be a proactive, pragmatic tool for building climate resilience in our landscapes."
References
Notes
- ↑ "i-Tree Applications". www.itreetools.org. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ↑ "i-Tree Applications". www.itreetools.org. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
- ↑ "סקר עצים". Thursday, 5 November 2020
- ↑ Nowak, 1996.
- ↑ McPherson, 2008.
- ↑ Thompson, 2012.
- ↑ Lerman, 2014.
- ↑ Nowak, 2013.
Bibliography
- Lerman, Susannah; et al. (2014). "Using urban forest assessment tools to model bird habitat potential". Landscape and Urban Planning. 122: 29–40. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.10.006 .
- McPherson, Greg; et al. (2008). "Los Angeles 1-Million Tree Cover Canopy Assessment" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station General Technical Report PSW-GTR-207: 1–64.
- Nowak, David; et al. (1996). "Assessing Urban Forests Effects and Values, New York City's Urban Forest" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northwest Research Station Resource Bulletin NRS-9: 1–26.
- Nowak, David; et al. (2013). "Modeled PM2.5 removal by trees in ten U.S. cities and associated health effects" (PDF). Environmental Pollution. 178: 395–402. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2013.03.050. PMID 23624337.
- Thompson, Benjamin; et al. (2014). "Urban Forests in Florida: Storm Damage Assessment Utility for Estimating Hurricane-Caused Tree Debris" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
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