Forest site degradation—temporary deviation from the natural site potential1
Introduction
In discussions on the sustainability of forest ecosystems, European forestry is often mentioned as an example that even over long periods, an extensive and yet sustainable forest management is possible. It is the question, however, whether forest productivity in Europe is indeed ecologically sustainable.
Large areas of Europe are covered with forests far away from an ecological equilibrium and from the natural, potential forest communities. For millenia, such forests have been heavily affected by human activities and even some of the forest decline symptoms discussed in the past decade, or at least the high susceptibility of forests to environmental stresses, might be a late result of historical land use practices. The extent of these historical impacts and their consequences often seem to be underestimated. In this paper, the attempt is made to estimate the magnitude of possible nutrient losses during past centuries. Degradations like that are at a certain extent to be seen as a temporal deviation from a natural, medium term natural equilibrium. Some ideas on their reversibility and the possibilities of natural or artificial regeneration will be discussed.
Section snippets
Historical aspects of European forestry
Since neolithic colonization of the land, man has interfered with forests. We learn from local chronicles about the intensity of these interferences (e.g. Majer, 1989Plochmann, 1992Hofmann et al., 1994Scholl and Katzensteiner, 1994). Plochmann (1992)assumes that there has not been one single acre of virgin forest in Central Europe for 7000 years. Deforestation reached a first peak in Central Europe in the 12th century. The forest area is supposed to have comprised ≈10% less land then, than it
Regeneration
Opposite to these heavy disturbances, the results of long-term experiments with fertilization, liming and other silvicultural amelioration measures, but also trends of natural soil and vegetation development, indicate that also a relatively quick regeneration is possible and that, to a certain degree, degradations are reversible.
Experimental fertilization plots observed for more than 30 years have shown that even one single measure (fertilization, liming, introduction of additional tree
Potential and temporary site quality
This obvious temporal and reversible variability of forest soils, sites and ecosystems, caused by degradation and regeneration effects, induce the following concept: Each site is defined by a number of stable, independent factors, such as elevation, exposition, inclination, parent material, climate and with some limitations, soil properties, which are responsible for the permanent site potential—the site unit of most classification systems. It is characterized by a potential natural forest
Amelioration measures
The rehabilitation of degraded sites is a priority task of forest policy. Soil amelioration can contribute essentially to maintain sustainability of forest ecosystems. It needs, however, a great deal of ecological understanding to find the pathway between ecologically reasonable medication and additional impact to the system. The regeneration of degraded ecosystems can be induced or accelerated by amelioration measures, such as fertilization, liming and forest management measures, well adapted
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Presented at the 20th International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress, Tampere, Finland, August 5–12, 1995.