Forest Resource Management

Over the past two decades, the rapid industrialization and urbanization processes placed heavy pressure on forest resources. Forest degradation, resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, and resilience in ecosystems become the major environmental issues. Forest resources are being depleted and degraded due to poor access controls, inequities in land-tenure and user rights. To conserve natural forests, management practices of forest can be focused on the prevention of destructive forests with the objective of retaining stored carbon and contributing to the mitigation of climate change impacts from the CO2 emissions which result from large forest fires.

Providing comprehensive coverage of interrelated topics in the field, this book includes management concepts, forest models, and ecological indicators. Geographic and Geospatial information systems (GISs) have especially benefited from increased development of their inherent capabilities and improved deployment. Decision Support Systems (DSSs) are fundamental in addressing the complexity of making coherent, integrated, and interdependent resource management decisions. This is due to their inherent nature of the ability to cohesively formulate those parameters or pertinent information that otherwise cannot be processed effectively by human heuristic processes. The book focuses on tools and techniques designed to aid foresters in implementing resource management plans or track threats to forest resources. Forest biodiversity refers to all forms of life found in forests, including plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms, and their roles in nature. It may be the richest of all the terrestrial ecosystems. Tropical forests alone contain some 50 percent of all known vertebrates, 60 percent of plant species, and possibly 90 percent of the world’s total species. Currently, forest biodiversity is increasingly threatened due to the activities linked to human beings. It is essential that all countries in the world work together to reduce forest loss and protect biodiversity. Therefore, this book presents a review of forest resources and forest biodiversity evaluation system in china.

Forest ecosystems are our priceless natural resource and are a key component of the global carbon budget. Forest fires can be a hazard to the viability and sustainable management of forests with consequences for natural and cultural environments, economies, and the life quality of local and regional populations. Thus, the selection of strategies to manage forest fires, while considering both functional and economic efficiency, is of primary importance, which is highlighted in this monograph. However, the rapid pace of changes in climate, disturbance regimes, invasive species, human population growth, and land use expected in the 21st century is likely to create substantial challenges for watershed management that may require new approaches, models, and best management practices. These challenges are likely to be complex and large scale, involving a combination of direct and indirect biophysical watershed responses, as well as socio-economic impacts and feedbacks. We discuss the complex relationships between forests and water in a rapidly changing environment, examine the trade-offs and conflicts between water and other resources, and propose new management approaches for sustaining water resources in the Anthropocene. The concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) has gained global political attention as the key to balance preservation and utilization of forests. This book serves as the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment in forestry resource management.