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Forests and Climate Change - Science topic

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Should the ongoing logging in the Amazon forest, including other natural highly biodiverse forests, be recognized as a crime of destroying the planet's strategic natural resources generating an increased threat to human existence on planet Earth?
Should the ongoing logging of trees in the Amazon forest, also other natural highly biodiverse forests, and the logging of trees in other areas of natural forest ecosystems carried out in the formula of robbery pseudo-forest management should be recognized as a crime of destruction of strategic natural resources of the planet generating an increase in the threat to human existence on planet Earth?
Dear Researchers, Scientists, Friends,
In recent years, the need to accelerate and increase the efficiency of the green transformation of the economy has been growing in importance. This is due to the need to increase the scale of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as generated by energy, industry, transportation, livestock farms, etc. continue to generate high greenhouse gas emissions and the global warming process is accelerating as a result. If the processes of green transformation of the economy are not significantly accelerated then the exceeding of 1.5 degrees C of the average temperature of the planet's atmosphere (counting from the beginning of the first industrial revolution) will happen even before the end of the current decade and the occurrence of a global climate catastrophe in the second half of this 21st century will become inevitable. One of the key elements of the green transformation of the economy is the cessation of deforestation processes and the development of reforestation programs for civilizationally degraded areas, post-industrial areas, post-mining heaps, urban areas as part of the reduction of concretions, and post-agricultural areas where the soil has been depleted due to the intensification of agriculture in the industrial model. By 2023, the deforestation rate in the rainforests of the Amazon natural rainforest has been almost halved in Brazil. This is a very good trend, in which perhaps finally the scale of protection of these natural highly biodiverse forests is beginning to improve significantly. This is especially important because the highly biodiverse rainforest ecosystems of the tropical natural forests of the Amazon contain more than 300 million unique species of flora and fauna and the Amazon forest is still the largest natural area of forest ecosystem that plays a key role in the natural process of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and emitting oxygen. The ongoing logging of trees in the Amazon forest, and the logging of trees in other areas of natural forest ecosystems as well, which is being carried out in a formula of predatory pseudo-management, should be recognized as a crime of destroying the planet's strategic natural resources generating an increase in the threat to human existence on planet Earth. Perhaps in this way, through appropriate changes in legal regulations, the large-scale deforestation of forest areas still taking place in many parts of the world and/or the predatory pseudo-management of forests that is being carried out would finally be ended.
I presented the issue of human security in connection with the green transformation of the economy, pro-environmental policies and the implementation of sustainable development goals in the article:
HUMAN SECURITY AS AN ELEMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
In view of the above, I address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:
Should the ongoing logging of trees in the Amazon forest, also other natural highly biodiverse forests, as well as the logging of trees in other areas of natural forest ecosystems carried out in the formula of predatory pseudo-forest management, also be recognized as a crime of destruction of strategic natural resources of the planet generating an increase in the threat to human existence on planet Earth?
Should the ongoing cutting of trees in areas of natural highly biodiverse forests be recognized as a crime of crimes against humanity?
What do you think about this topic?
What is your opinion on this issue?
Please answer,
I invite everyone to join the discussion,
Thank you very much,
Best regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
The above text is entirely my own work written by me on the basis of my research.
In writing this text I did not use other sources or automatic text generation systems.
Copyright by Dariusz Prokopowicz
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Still steadily declining forest area, deforestation prevailing over aforestation, predatory cutting of entire stands, cutting down old-growth forests, creating pseudo-forest monocultures serving mainly or exclusively for the production of wood raw material, etc., are key factors in the rapid decline of the biodiversity of the planet's natural ecosystems, including the extinction of many species of flora and fauna. In addition, deforestation processes also negatively affect the climate and amplify the progressive processes of global warming, soil aridity, etc. It is extremely strange that in the era of the 21st century, widespread knowledge of the civilizational sources and consequences of the progressive process of global warming, deforestation and/or predatory pseudo-management of forests is still carried out in many countries of the world. It is essential to urgently reverse these negative processes.
In the following article, I have included the results of the research conducted on the connection of the issue of sustainable development, the genesis and meaning of the Sustainable Development Goals, the essence of sustainable development in the context of social, normative, economic, environmental, climatic, as well as human rights aspects, etc. The research also addressed the issue of key determinants of human existential security as an element of the concept of sustainable development.
HUMAN SECURITY AS AN ELEMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
The key issues of this issue and why the above issue is important is what I wrote in the following publication:
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY DEVELOPMENT AS A KEY ELEMENT OF THE PRO-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE ECONOMY TOWARDS GREEN ECONOMY AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY
What do you think about this?
What is your opinion on this topic?
Best regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
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Globally, deforestation processes continue to outpace aforestation processes.It is well known that forests are one of the key influences on the climate, on the stability and sustainability of the climate, the maintenance of a humid microclimate, local water management, the state of biodiversity in regions.
Forests are also one of the key factors in reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere. At the UN climate summit COP26, it was agreed that by the end of this decade, i.e. by the end of 2030, national and global forest deforestation processes should be completed and forest afforestation processes should be accelerated. The restoration of forest ecosystems should be carried out in accordance with the principles of ecology of specific environmental formations of forest ecosystems consisting of replacing monocultures of tree crops with biodiverse restored, tree-rich forest ecosystem formations adequate to the specific local environment, geological and climatic setting.
But why do we have to wait so many more years for this? Why have such decisions not been taken earlier?
Why do the processes of afforestation not already prevail over deforestation?
Why are forests still being cut down when we know how important they are for slowing down the progressive process of global warming?
What needs to be done so that aforestation processes already prevail over deforestation?
How can afforestation processes be implemented quickly and effectively?
How can afforestation processes in civilisationally degraded areas be carried out quickly and efficiently?
How can afforestation be carried out with a high level of biodiversity in restored natural forest ecosystems?
What do you think about it?
What is your opinion on this topic?
Please reply,
I invite everyone to the discussion,
Thank you very much,
Kind regards,
Dariusz
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Choose to plant trees as part of your life.
I think we have choices about what we focus on as a culture. While none of us has the power to decide that, we can decide for ourselves and those around us what activities we engage in. We decide to promote reading and learning or not. We decide to promote diversity and freedom, or the censorship and oppression of those around us. We create our culture via many small decisions.
Likewise, we can decide to make planting trees part of out culture or not. And not just one day a year when we plant a tree,... that means not much.
How can afforestation be increased? - Quora
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Both types of forest are having their own importance, like young forests are storing more atmospheric carbon than older but the older one is able to manage high biodiversity.
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Both old and young forest plays significant role in slowing climate change, although old forest May seems to play more significant role because of the rich in its biodiversity especially the large volume of the tree canopy, also the young forest could also do so depending on it's structure, components and the age of the young forest.
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can anyone help me based on current studies on thrests to mangrove forests?
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The major threats to mangrove forests include population explosion, conversion to aquaculture ponds, clear-felling for timber, charcoal and wood chip production for industrial and urban development.
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Especially in Mediterranean forests climate change will bring more fires. So using fire combustible that is little wood to make pellets will cut the combustible and give renewable energy. Forest cuts remanants are already used for pellets but large scale use of mattorrals and maquis for pellets is not known (from me).
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I agree with Verena. Sustainable use of shrubs (and small diameter wood) for bioenergy purposes, depends on the local analysis of spatial-explicit supply-demand of woodfuel (or charcoal, but also biochar...), and available harvesting/processing techniques. This would potentially highlight priority areas for wood energy use, as well as areas in which biodiversity conservation (e.g., deadwood-dependent organisms) and carbon sequestration 8e.g., soil carbon, litter) should, instead, be prioritized.
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I am carrying out a study on the ecology and phenological responses of tree in tropical rainforest to climate change. To aid my study, I am in need of baseline data set and possibly assess to permanent sample plots in the tropical rainforest area of southern Nigeria which is contiguous with that of Cameroon.
Please I am in need of someone to point me in the right direction. This study is quite rare in this location thus, there's no literature to assist.
,
Thank you.
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@Beckline Mukete
Thank you very much. I will check them out.
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Want to get a sense of the most crucial questions w.r.t. forestry and climate change that are yet to be answered. Questions which require further research, the answers to which will put us in a better place to combat climate change (If you have many questions, you may provide 3 big questions at the most)
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"Combat climate change" was the blatant bias reveal. Seriously, my research question would be: What percentage of the adult American population thinks "the nexus of forests and climate change" is an important topic (and why)?
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I want to start my PhD research on Climate change impact assessment and adaptation in public health in Nigeria.I would like to know methodology to use tofor this research. I need to ask how can a specific methodology helps in defining the frontiers of my research. Can someone share a Conceptual framework on similar kind of research? I hope I can improve my question after your kind responses
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The pace at which the private sector is engaging in climate change related activities as well as carbon trade is yet to be convincing? Most forest concessionaires still find it profitable to engage in logging their forests for timber rather than protecting the same forest for carbon. This renders the 'logged to protected forest' concept still unrealistic. New pathways are seemingly needed......
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Obviously there are some climate change deniers around. Read the Wikipedia file on this odd way of earning a living from oil and coal lobbyist funding.
If one recognise that the climate is changing rapidly due to human GHG-emissions one most also accept that humans can influence the speed and magnitude of this change and even select to end it.
Someone who denies this - contrary to the scientific established fact - can spend days commenting negatively on all discussions about climate change mitigation.
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to detect the factors that accelerate the occurrence of rigor mortis
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agreed with mushtaq ahmad
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In the current situation of urbanization, anthropogenic activity, El nino, Landuse cover change and even many other factors are influencing huge variation in spatiotemporal variation of rainfall. I wish to address influence of these factors on my research study area i.e., Coastal region and Western Ghats of Karnataka, India. Am requesting to suggest me the proper way to achieve the criteria. Please suggest me the recent papers who are working in this area, data source of my region.
Thank you
Regards
Vinay  
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@ Saswata Nandi, Thanks alot... 
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I'm not sure about how consider a conifer plantation. Is it right to consider it a forest management practice?
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Practices: site preparation, planting, weed control, prescribed fire, thinning, harvests (and others). No matter what the tree species, if it involves these, it seems like it would be a "forest management practice."
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The effect of climate and land use/cover changes on streamflow of non-experimental catchments has long drawn the attention of water resource scientists. Numerous approaches have been proposed to tackle this issue, among the most popular are:
  • Trend analysis of hydro-climatological and vegetation time series (i.e., Kahya and Kalayci, JoH, 2004);
  • Comparison between pre and post change periods using time series (i.e., Costa et al., JoH, 2003);
  • Hydrological modelling calibrated against data before change and applied after change followed by a comparison with post change time series (i.e., Wilk et al., HP, 2001; Rodriguez et al., HP, 2010);
  •  Water and energy excess in the context of the Budyko framework (i.e., Tomer and Schilling, JoH, 2009; Roderick and Farquhar, WRR, 2011).
What are the other relevant approaches and which of them are more reliable with regard to accuracy, popularity and evidences in scientific literature?
Recognizing there is not a definitive answer for this question, the aim here is to stimulate a debate and put together different opinions, experiences and constructive discussion about this topic.
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I have been involved at times, or just interested in this subject also.  What we as people of the world, make sure we support hydrologic and associated climatic studies such as experimental catchment and watersheds, and long term climate stations.  The streamflow network monitoring such as collected by the US Geological Survey is critical.  Perhaps even restarting abandoned stream gaging and climate stations with significant records should be considered.  Critical gaps in information collecting  considered and addressed, especially where the climate change models tend to agree that vegetation change, storm severity and frequency are expected to be high.  Increased use, application and availability of remote sensing data goes along with this theme.  Although much data is probably publicly available, I am relatively sure there is some not available for outside review and analysis.  I would also like to see some sort of rainfall and doppler data base that records and keeps all the records so they could be searched, installed as needed into GIS and increasing ability to pair storm extent, timing, intensity to hydrologic unit boundaries.  Since not all the climate change models agree, there maye no best world wide, but there may be upper and lower bounds, and average.  Areas with glaciers and tidal influence seem to be a couple of special needs, as both are likely to undergo marked changes in land and vegetation change, and hydrology with respect to water storage and timing of flow from glaciers and water quality, flow and vegetation changes from changes in salinity, tidal extent, etc.  The best approach will increasingly require cooperation and best minds, science, and ideas.  I have read many papers that think important to mention climate change as a possibility or future need, but I even though I believe in climate change, red flags come up when accuracy and precision subjects come up.  I dont feel we can or should expect that, and I am not against forecasting based on past and present, forecasts are forecasts, and defining and applying these to specific areas and locations remains imperfect.  Many may have seen the several day news reports on October 3-4, 2015 in the South Carolina area.  The presence of Hurricane Juaquin off coast and the positioning of the low made a severe scenario that seldom gets such news coverage.  With climate change, these scenarios of severity should be more frequent, yet how many of them fall on rural areas as opposed to populated areas as South Carolina, where there are a substantial number of weather and stream gaging stations.  How will we identify and put in perspective?
Back to vegetation, we remotely can pick up vegetation changes, such as mortality in freshwater wetlands and maritime ecosystems as they succomb to salinity change.  We should be able to pick up vegetation change with abnormal mortality and for salvage as trees are stressed, insects and other issues become evident, as more disturbances as flooding, droughts or wildfires.  Vegetation change often brings on hydrologic change and some of this may be picked up with the present stream gauging network.
i remain interested, curious, and engaged enough for a semi-retired hydrologist to know or maybe just believe of no perfect advice, paper, or approach.  If you interest in this subject centers on a location, that would be helpful bo bound your study area, I would advise to work with others to assess what information you have and what you need to help document past (including paleofloods, drought with wildfires and vegetation change) and historic conditions including hydro modifications, farming, urbanization, conversion of timber types.  It is best to find reference conditions too if you can.  For coastal areas at minimim, I would recommend obtaining LIDAR and high definition aerial infrared photos, for both its usefulness for identifying hydrologic boundaries and channel networks, but also GIS change detection over time also for vegetation.  
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It is known that there is some forest survey samples containing more error than others. Can we detect them? 
Thanks
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Check data amputation methods  
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NPP for forestry system as a function of abiotic/biotic components is important for interpreting LUCC and CC effects
Partitioning behaviour, canopy density, leaf fall, dependence upon climatic factors is important
simple approach to use for different forestry systems is needed
similar thing is true for agro-forestry systems too
regards
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Net Primary Productivity, NPP, is a technical concept very difficult to apply in the field at the forest ecosystem scale. It is the difference between net photosyntesis minus respiration. A good approximation is to evaluate the biomass balance equation: Inputs (Ingrowth, recruitment, regeneration) minus outputs (mortality, harvesting) plus minus changes in growth. Changes in growth are more or less approximated by using or fitting growth and yield models. The time scale is important; for very short time scales (less than 5 years assumption that inputs and outputs are equal can be made) and the model coalesces into the growth of the forest in this period of time. For larger time scales make sure you have the right dates of tree ingrowth and recruitment as well as mortality and harvesting becausethe modelis very sensitive to these dates. One good assumption is to evaluate ingrowth, recruitment, mortality andharvesting at the middle of the time period.
Hope this explanation address properly the evaluation of NPP.
Best WIshes and Kind Regards
Sincerely
Jose Navar, Ph.D Oklahoma State University 
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You know, in our days, everywhere in our globe are very important the mitigation of ecological pressures and adaptation measures for anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGS) with a note on simple measures on carbon credits. Your opinions will help us in our working.
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Dear Prof. Kenneth M Towe,
Yes, now I am okay, the only meaningful mitigation of human added GHGs can be accomplished by mitigating human procreation... population growth.  The problem, as Newell & Marcus emphasized 25 years ago, is that “the choice requires universal cooperation on a scale contrary to human behavior. The peaceful humane escape from disaster is [population] attrition.”
In our paper said this: "Global Warming has become a Global problem..." It is hard to disagree with that, by definition, we will change it, because the important thing is that local and regional change is what's important ...for the people who live there. In our own venue, Tirana, the available evidence exist, but it is very limited, reveals that the climate has not changed much, except due to your urban heat and pollution problems.  Yes. many other parts of the world are similar, at all latitudes. Yes, it's not global ... it's local. There's an environmental phrase... "Think globally, act locally". You asked me with question: "Do you act locally in the high latitudes or altitudes differently than you do on the equator at sea level"? In our concept My answer is maybe ... We will try to know more about it ... Let's hope in our future ... about it ...
Either way I thank you very much for critical suggestions, to help high levels, given for us!
In the near future, step by step we will send material updated and adapted by the appropriate repairs performed by us. We welcome your help and cooperation in every time! At the same time we thank our colleague Dr. Jetty Ramadevi for her suggestions and her assistance in particular for links, given to us!
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I wish to know if there are established methods for estimating carbon emission through forest degradation.
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Dear Uzoma,
Attached please find a review covers the answer to your question.
A review of methods to measure and monitor
historical carbon emissions from forest degradation
M. Herold, R.M. Román-Cuesta, V. Heymell, Y. Hirata,
P. Van Laake, G.P. Asner, C. Souza, V. Avitabile and K. MacDicken
Hoping this will be helpful,
Rafik
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In the Czech Republic Forest Management Forensic Experts commonly use orthophotomaps, aerial photography products, accessible online. Satellite images usage is rare in their practice. I have not found any mention of Forensic Experts using the nowadays tools to gain mensurational variables from remote sensing data. In that case we are able to obtain data which are describing the stand that was already cut down.
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Just in case you are interested, in Greece forester studiers and the Forest Service also use orthofotomaps and aerial photo products in our studies for the development of the forest maps and for the identification of the canopy cover and the land type and land use of an area,  according to the instructions of the forest law. Satellite images usage is rare in Greece too and utilized by distinguished researchers for example to measure the effects of a forest fire. Satellite images are very expensive unlike other sources of images that are more easily accessible from the National Cadaster and the Military Services.
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Forest are the main source of the earth which support to protect biosphere. How the climate change effects the natural forest ecosystem and how can we predict impacts and mitigate those impacts? 
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See the following publications which have to do with your question and have been the focus of my research over decades:
Books and Software:
Botkin, D.B., 1993, Forest Dynamics: An Ecological Model, Oxford University Press.
Botkin, D.B.,2015 JABOWA -IV (Software and manual). Can be obtained from my website www.danielbbotkin.com
Botkin, D.B., 2010, Powering The Future: A Scientist’s Guide to Energy Independence (FT Press, Upper Saddle River, NJ).
Botkin, D. B., 2012, The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered (Oxford University Press, New York, hardback and ebook, September 14, 2012). (One of 5 finalist in the 2013 USA Best Book Awards (Science))
Articles:
Botkin, D.B., J.F. Janak and J.R. Wallis, 1973, Estimating the effects of carbon fertilization on forest composition by ecosystem simulation, pp. 328 - 344, In: G.M. Woodwell and E.V. Pecan, eds., Carbon and the Biosphere, Brookhaven National Laboratory Symposium No. 24, Technical Information Center, U.S.A.E.C., Oak Ridge, TN.
Botkin, D.B., 1977, Forests, lakes and the anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide, BioScience 27: 325 - 331.
Woodwell, G.M., R.H. Whittaker, W.A. Reiners, G.E. Likens, C.A.S. Hall, C.C. Delwiche, and D.B. Botkin, 1978, The biota and the world carbon budget, Science 199: 141 - 146.
Botkin, D.B, 1979, Status of ecological theory, pp. 101 - 102, In: M,N, Dastoor, L, Margulis, and K,H, Nealson, eds., Interaction of the Biota with the Atmosphere and Sediments, Final Report of NASA Workshop on Global Ecology, held October 18 - 20, 1979.
Botkin , D B. B. Maguire, B. Moore, III, H.J. Morowitz and L.B. Slobodkin, 1979, Ecology, pp 105-121 in N. S. Bricker (ed.), Life Beyond the Earth's Environment: The biology of living organisms in space, NAS Space Science Board, NAS Washington, D. C. :105-121.
Ralston, Charles W.; G. M. Woodwell; R. H. Whittaker; W. A. Reiners; G. E. Likens; C. C. Delwiche; D. B. Botkin 1979 Where has all the carbon gone? Science, New Series, Vol. 204, No. 4399. (Jun. 22, 1979), pp. 1345-1346.
Botkin, D.B. (ed.) 1980. Life from a Planetary Perspective: Fundamental Issues in Global Ecology. Final report NASA Grant NASW-3392. 49 pp.
Botkin, D.B. (ed.), 1980, Life from a Planetary Perspective: Fundamental Issues in Global Ecology, Final report NASA Grant NASW-3392, 49 pp.
Botkin, D. B. and E. V. Pecan (eds.), 1982, Habitability of the Earth: Land-Air Interactions. Report to NASA, 32pp.
Botkin, D.B., 1982, Can there be a theory of global ecology? J. of Theor. Biol. 96: 95 - 98.
Botkin, D.B. (ed.) 1980. Life from a Planetary Perspective: Fundamental Issues in Global Ecology. Final report NASA Grant NASW-3392. 49 pp.
Botkin, D.B., 1984, The Biosphere: The New Aerospace Engineering Challenge. Aerospace America, July 1984, p. 73-75.
Botkin, D.B. and S.W. Running, 1984, Role of Vegetation in the Biosphere, Purdue University Machine Processing of Remotely Sensed Data (Symposium), pp. 326-332.
Davis, M. B. and D. B. Botkin, 1985, Sensitivity of the Cool--Temperate Forests and Their Fossil Pollen to Rapid Climatic Change, Quaternary Research 23:327-340.
Botkin, D. B., 1985, The Need for A Science of The Biosphere, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews,10(3):267-278.
Bretherton, F.P., D. J. Baker, D.B.Botkin, K.C.A.Burke, M. Chahine, J.A. Dutton, L.A. Fisk, N.W.Hinners, D.A. Landgrebe, J.J. McCarthy, B. Moore, R.G. Prinn, C.B. Raleight, WV.H.Reis, W.F. Wee,s, P.J. Zinke, 1986, Earth Systems Science: A Program for Global Change, NASA Earth Systems Science Committee of the NASA Advisory Council, Washington, D. C. 48pp + supplements.
Botkin, D. B. 1986 (ed.), Remote Sensing of the Biosphere, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Botkin, D.B., 1989, "Science and The Global Environment," pp. 3 - 14 (Chapter 1) in
Botkin, D.B., M. Caswell, J.E.Estes, A.Orio (eds) Man's Role in Changing The Global Environment:Perspectives on Human Involvement, Academic Press, Boston.
Stolz, J.F. Botkin, D.B. and M.N.Dastoor, 1989, "The Integral Biosphere", pp. 31-49 (Chapter 3) in M. B. Rambler and L. Margulis (eds.), Global Ecology:Towards a Science of the Biosphere , Academic Press Pub., Boston.
Botkin, D. B., R. A. Nisbet, and T. E. Reynales, 1989, "Effects of Climate Change on Forests of the Great Lake States, pp.2-1 to 2-31 in The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States, J. B. Smith and D. A. Tirpak (eds.) U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D. C., EPA -203-05-89-0.
Botkin, D. B. and R. A. Nisbet, 1990, Response of Forests to Global Warming and CO2 Fertilization, Report to EPA.
Botkin, D. B., D. A. Woodby, and R. A. Nisbet, 1991, Kirtland's Warbler Habitats: A Possible Early Indicator of Climatic Warming, Biological Conservation 56 (1): 63-78.
Botkin, D. B., 1991, Global Warming: What it is, What is Controversial About it, and What We Might Do In Response To It, UCLA J. of Environmental Law and Policy, 9: 119-142.
Botkin, D. B., R. A. Nisbet, S. Bicknell, C. Woodhouse, B. Bentley, and W. Ferren, 1991, Global Climate Change and California's Natural Ecosystems, pp. 123 - 149 in J. B. Knox (ed.), Global Climate Change and California: Potential Impacts and Responses, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Botkin, D. B., and R. A. Nisbet, 1992, Forest response to climatic change: effects of parameter estimation and choice of weather patterns on the reliability of projections, Climatic Change 20: 87-111.
Botkin, D. B., R. A. Nisbet and L. G. Simpson, 1992, Forests and Global Climate Change, Chapter 19, pp. 274- 290 in S. K. Majumdar, L. S. Kalkstein, B. M. Yarnal, E. W. Miller, and L. M. Rosenfeld (eds.) Global Climate Change: Implications, Challenges and Mitigation Measures, Pennsylvania Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia.
Botkin, D. B. and R. A. Nisbet, 1992, Projecting the effects of climate change on biological diversity in forests, pp. 277 - 293 in R. Peters and T. Lovejoy, (Eds.) Consequences of the Greenhouse Effect for Biological Diversity, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Guggenheim, D. and D. B. Botkin, 1996, CO2 Offset Opportunities in Siberian Forests, Report to the Electirc Power Research Institute, Center for the Study of the Environment, Santa Barbara, CA, EPRI report # TR
Botkin, D. B., Henrik Saxe, Miguel B. Araújo, Richard Betts, Richard H.W. Bradshaw, Tomas Cedhagen, Peter Chesson, Terry P. Dawson, Julie Etterson, Daniel P. Faith, Simon Ferrier, Antoine Guisan, Anja Skjoldborg Hansen, David W. Hilbert, Craig Loehle, Chris Margules, Mark New, Matthew J. Sobel, and David R.B. Stockwell. 2007 "Forecasting Effects of Global Warming on Biodiversity." BioScience 57(3): 227-236.
Ngugi, Michael R. and Daniel B. Botkin, 2011, “Validation of a multispecies forest dynamics model using 50-year growth from Eucalyptus forests in eastern Australia,” Ecological Modelling. 222: 3261– 3270.
Ngugi, M.R., Daniel B. Botkin, David Doley, Mark Cant, and Jack Kelley.2013 “Restoration and Management of Callitris Forest Ecosystems in Eastern Australia: Simulation of Attributes of Growth Dynamics, Growth Increment and Biomass Accumulation.” Ecological Modelling 263 (2013) 152– 161.
Ngugi, M.R., D. Doley, and D.B. Botkin, 2013. “Application of a forest dynamics simulator to inform sustainable biodiversity conservation and grazing management in Australia”.20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation(MODSIM2013). 2013: Adelaide (December 1, 2013).
Botkin, D. B., 2013. “What Forestry Needs in the Anthropogene,” The Forestry Source. September 2013 • Vol. 18, No. 9. p. 11. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/saf/forestrysource_201309/index.php#
Botkin, D. B., 2014 “Adapting Forest Science, Practice, and Policy to Shifting Ground: From Steady-State Assumptions to Dynamic Change.“ Sample, V. Alaric and R. Patrick Bixler (eds.). Forest Conservation and Management in the Anthropocene. General Technical Report. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Rocky Mountain Research Station. (Reproduced at website http://www.forestbusinessnetwork.com)
Botkin, D.B., M.R. Ngugi, and D. Doley. 2014. “Estimates and Forecasts of Forest Biomass and Carbon Sequestration in North America and Australia: A Forty-Five Year Quest.” Drewno 2014, Vol. 57, No. 192 DOI: 10.12841
Ngugi, Michael R., David Doley, Daniel B. Botkin, Mark Cant, Victor J. Neldner & Jack Kelley. 2014. Long-term estimates of live above-ground tree carbon stocks and net change in managed uneven-aged mixed species forests of sub-tropical Queensland, Australia Australian Forestry DOI:10.1080/00049158.2014.979979 Published online: 26 Nov 2014.
Ngugi, Michael R., David Doley, Daniel B. Botkin, Mark Cant. 2015. "Growth rates of Eucalyptus and other Australian native tree species derived from seven decades of growth monitoring." Journal of Forestry Research (in press)
Shoemaker, W. B., Anderson, F., Barr, J. G., Graham, S. L., and Botkin, D. B.: Carbon exchange between the atmosphere and subtropical forested cypress and pine wetlands, Biogeosciences, 12, 2285-2300, doi:10.5194/bg-12-2285-2015, 2015.
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Eddy covariance measurment
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Please have a look this publication may its very helpful for you
(Treatment and assessment of the CO2-exchange at a complex forest site in Thuringia, Germany,Corinna Rebmann a,*, Marcelo Zeri b, Gitta Lasslop a, Martina Mund a, Olaf Kolle a, Ernst-Detlef Schulze a, Christian Feigenwinter )
at this address (Contents lists available at ScienceDirectm, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology,journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet)
good luck 
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Many forest conservation goals (not to mention cultural, landscape, hydrological & urban shade goals) rely on a continual presence of big, old trees. Part of our sustainable stewardship responsibilities must surely be to begin growing the big, old trees of the future. Most exercises in predicting impacts of climate change don't go past 2100 - because that's the limit of the climate forecast data. But our objective requires trees to live and grow for several centuries - well into the 'dark zone' beyond 2100. What should be our logical response to having to make decisions now in the context of such uncertainty? Carry on as usual with the historically native tree species? Adjust genetic origins or management practices? Try lots of different combinations to avoid 'putting all our eggs in one basket'?
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What type of climate change are you considering with regard to long lived tree species.
 
You are probably concerned with the catastrophic human produced climate warming projected by the IPCC and Global Climate Models that have not been validated, and that have failed to match observations (no climate warming during the last 2 decades in spite of rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon containing greenhouse gases.)
 
One of many papers showing that CLIMATE WARMING CAUSES INCREASED ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS suggests  that the IPCC thesis and the assumptions of Global Climate Models ----------- that that assume CLIMATE WARMING IS CAUSEDBY ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS ----------------- are in serious error.... see: 
 
 
 
The IPCC thesis and the assumptions of Global Climate Models that that assume that
CLIMATE WARMING IS CAUSED BY  INCREASED ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS ..........has been the basis for taxpayer funded and enormously misguided government policies and regulations designed to curb human emissions of CO2.
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTING from the FULL TEXT of the paper (with somewhat 'iffy' English) concerning the dominance of the Sun's influence on the Earth's CYCLICAL warming and cooling ................. available at:
 
 
 
"The start of the Grand Minimum of TSI is anticipated approximately in cycle 27±1 approximately in 2043±11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age (of the Maunder Minimum type) in the past 7,500 years approximately in 2060±11, with possible duration of 45-65 years "
 
"The Sun is controlling and practically totally determining the mechanism of quasi-bicentennial cyclic alternations of climate changes from warming to Little Ice Age and set corresponding time-scales for practically all physical processes taking place in the Sun-Earth system. The current long practically stable levels of World Ocean and of temperature additionally reflects the current state of global warming during past 17 years, which are under the direct control of the quasi-bicentennial decrease of TSI. Approximately in the end of 2014 we begin the descent into 19th Little Ice Age in the past 7,500 years " 
 
Peter Salonius
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I have collected data from 4 small mountain streams with permanent flow or with dry months. I took between about 74 plots with 40mx 20m size, collecting data related to tree species richness, number of individuals, height, DBH, tree distance from river bank, and regeneration . Site characteristics and water regime in the river is also recorded, as well as number of dry months (if any). My aim is to study  the relationship between actual dominant tree or shrub species, and their regeneration, to better understand successions (if any). Please provide links or publications if available as I have limited access. 
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Jean, Check out this paper by a colleague Christian Marks
This is focused on how changing the flood regime changes species composition within floodplain forest communities
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Land conflict effects land use (and deforestation in Brazil).  Can anyone give me good examples of places where contention between groups (e.g., mechanized interests and subsistence farmers) is leading to loss of native wildlands (forests, savannas, etc.).  I wish to generalize my research to a broader, possibly global, perspective.
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Land conflicts are taking place primarily because unequal distribution of it and secondly because of unscientific use of it. Thirdly in the name of development also land of the dependents being acquired by the state- corporate-builder nexus in many Asian countries including India.  
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The question presented is related to the completion of a study on the effects of forest fragmentation on ferns communities in southern Brazil.
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An example from an edge for your consideration.
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I am reading many articles that tells Africa has the highest deforestation rate in the world. However, I couldn't find any recent peer reviewed article that tells this information. Can anyone suggest me a recent peer reviewed article for this?
Thanks a lot,
Binyam. 
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Dear Binyam
You can use FAO data with safety. i.e. check  FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 or a newer edition.
Forest annual change rate (2000-2005)
Africa : -0.62%
South and South-east Asia: -0.98%
Central America: -1.23%
Good luck
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We know quite a lot about potential impact of climate change on main tree species (e.g. pine, spruce, oak, beech) in central Europe but what about hornbeam? Could anyone write some about the effect of climate change on Carpinus betulus? In Poland we observe that the present climate evolution would be favorable for hornbeam, but would it be long-term? We consider some questions that are really crucial for silvicultural decisions. Have you made any researches/models on impact of climate changes on Carpinus betulus in Europe? If so, I would be grateful to be advised relevant publications.
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Dear Piotre Sewarniak
In my opinion identification of ring width in hornbeam is very hard; I work in Iran but I couldn't create basic chronological report for a long term period for hornbean whereas I gotten cores from Carpinus betulus. My experiment in Caspian forests in harvested and non-harvested sites in the north forest of Iran show that regeneration of hornbeam under the beech sites in high elevation was increased.
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Storage of Carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soil carbon pools are one of the key supporting services provided by the forest.
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Lets have a browse at www.leafasia.org and look for guidelines to measure carbon pools. I used their method.
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Photosynthesis as well as climatic and edaphic factors are responsible for increment in tree biomass. What is their quantitative relation with carbon sequestration?
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In case of the Amazonian species Senna reticulata, our results are reinforcing the relevance of sink-source relationship of each species or functional groups, to  reponses under a CO2-enriched atmosphere and as a consequence, increasing or not carbon sequestration as biomass and/or reserves.The latest can be used to increase growth in a future stress condition (flooding in our case). http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00468-014-1015-0#page-1
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Which image product is best suited for this purpose and how can I download that product?
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The term desertification seems to mean different things to different people. Broadly defined as reduction of the biological potential of land in arid and semi-arid areas, there are three main effects: change in aridity, vegetation species change, and change in soil properties. Most remote sensing focusses on change in 'greenness', for example defined by products such as LAI, or indices such as NDVI, which relate well to GPP, and usually correlate closely with precipitation variation in semi-arid regions. Here a long time series is needed as typically there is high inter-annual variation. Species change may often be more important, for example change from grassland to woody shrub invasion. This may not show up if we look only at coarse scale, so finer resolution and classification techniques are needed. For soils this is more difficult - there may be some change in soil colour with salinity, but usually vegetation productivity is used as a surrogate for other stress factors.
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In Bhimtal, Kumaon Himalaya, India, we have a patch of introduced and self regenerating Himalayan cypresses (Cupressus torulosa) in an unlikely climate for the species, since it is normally found in drier areas than Bhimtal. It has been noticed that winters in Bhimtal are warmer and wetter than they were 30 years ago. During the course of the last year, at least 4 mature cypress trees simply snapped in half, leaving a stump some 5 to 10 meters high. There was neither breeze nor rain on the days they snapped, there was simply a crack and a crash and that was it. Can anybody suggest a cause? This is the first time such events are occurring in this forest.
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Peter-
I am building on Adrian Christopher Newton's response and I believe I can provide a reasonable answer to your question. Himalayan cypress is highly susceptible to a fungal pathogen, A. ostoyae. This pathogen is strongly associated with conifers and is a specific type of "honey fungus". It attacks mature trees rather than younger ones so you would not be aware of a problem until the trees mature. It has been found in Kashmir India, which is only about 600 km from your location. A. ostoyae is more likely to attack trees which are not in their native ecosystem. And, relevant to your question regarding climate, it is more likely to occur after rains. Since the Himalayan cypress is found with drier soils, the dampness of soil in current conditions is likely stressing the tree which, again, makes it more susceptible to this pathogen. A. ostoyae also is correlated with attack by bark beetle, which could be a factor influencing trunk breakage as Newton indicated. It is a form of root rot, which corresponds with Newton's response. I am attaching some information you may find helpful. Good luck.
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This research is wonderful, congratulations. My question is, is there any tool that can generate raster longitude and latitude in Arcgis?
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Hola Fernando,
I'm afraid there is no tool to do that, but you can find several methods that resolve it.
These esri's threads may help you:
If you are not familiarized with python nor modelBuilder, you could try a simple approach:
- Convert a raster of the study area to point.
- Create two fields (floating or double) to store x and y.
- Calculate geometry (longitude for x, latitude for y)
- Convert to raster using x field (longitude raster)
- Convert to raster using y field (latitude raster).
Suerte!
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Would appreciate any references. My current research is entering into this domain. Colonial Rule in India had its impact on every facet of life. Perhaps, genuine people's movements for protecting their livelihood through forest production and exploitation of the environment through traditional methods got branded as political revolt and suppressed by the colonial rulers. If there is anyone who has researched into people's movements from an environmental angle in India between 1857-1947, please provide some inputs.
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The development of colonial forestry in India had a considerable influence in the subsequent development of environmental and conservation movements in India. Some publications that are relevant here come to mind:
Books:
S. Ravi Rajan, Modernizing Nature. Forestry and Imperial Eco-Development 1800-1950
Gregory A. Barton, Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism
Chapter:
Richard P. Tucker, The depletion of India's Forests under British Imperialism: Planters, Foresters, and Peasants in Assam and Kerala, In: Donald Worster (ed.), The Ends of the Earth. Perspectives on Modern Environmental History (Cambdige University Press, 1988), pp. 118-140.
I have published an article that explores the link between Indian and Scottish forestry that might be relevant to your interest:
Jan Oosthoek, “Worlds Apart? The Scottish Forestry Tradition and the Development of Forestry in India”, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, Vol 3 (2010) issue 1, 69-82.
You can download a copy from my profile on this site.
There is in fact a substantial literature on the colonial impact on conservation and environmentalism in India and these publications will give you some pointers to this literature.
I hope this is helpful.
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Preferably high resolution and long time series. Thanks for any suggestions!
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Hi Yongshuo,
Perhaps not so high resolution, but you can get data back to 2006 from:
and if you have some money, one good option appears to be:
Good luck,
Camilo
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Maybe in environmental modeling, ecology, robotics, and so on.
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For spatial mathematics, including environmental modeling, the kriging estimation method (as well most methods in geostatistics) relies on finding the weights for it's samples trought the solution of A*w=B system, the kriging system. The criteria for the solution is that the model of anisotropy given by the user is followed in the estimation.
In the same procedure it is very common to use rotation matrices to make compatible two different spatial entities of data (point and grid or mesh, for example).
Also I believe linear algebra is commonly used in most physical engines, including scientific DEM methods to calculate force, velocity, etc., by means of direction. In fact is so common that most probably the same is used in robotics.
I've actually googled it, (http://commons.bcit.ca/math/examples/robotics/linear_algebra/) and in here you can see they use algebra to handle several different coordinate systems in the same machine.
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Climate change adaptation.
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Climate change is a product of over industrialisation of developed and developing countries, not the result of the subsistence-livelihood based actions of poor communities which are largely close-to-nature..
But unfortunately these poor communities face the brunt of climate change, due to their proximity to natural living. Their lifestyle itself is a mix of innovation and ingenuity for survival. The best help is self-help.
Innovative ways to adapt to climate change in poor communities of developing countries could be:
1. Food: First increase food security by investing in long term measures; Kitchen Garden, Backyard fishponds, Bee culture, Domestic animals, Horticulture, Olericulture, barter instead of currency exchange-Getting back to basics. When food supply is assured thus, wider and bigger things can be considered.
2. Water: Check dams to recharge ground water, desilting ponds, rain water harvesting measures,
3. Flora: Raising water friendly tree species, Raising high-demand crops on small land holdings for urban markets.
4. Fauna: Encourage mini-ecosystems with wider range of species to ensure resilience through richness in biodiversity. Creating conditions for various species to breed and propagate, which can than be harvested at sustainable rates.
5. Education: Attitude change is the single most effective factor which can make or break a community's will to survive. Therefore education should be a high priority goal,even in times of hardship. Education means the capacity and maturity to put responsibilities over rights, differentiate between short and long term investments, needs over luxuries, putting the community before the "I".
6. Co-operatives: Pooling resources with similar communities and individuals can alleviate hardship in times of scarce resources.
7. Political: Good leaders are to be encouraged to lead by personal example. This will also safeguard the community against exploitation by middle men and outsiders who have no stake in the community's well being. Ordinary community members should be informed of their rights and resist urban-centred mega projects which do not give much back to the community except for grabbing their land and other resources in the name of 'development'.
8. Understand the negative effects of consumerism, urbanism, mindless entertainment
9. Take measures to keep the community together by promoting Culture, Language, Religion and nature friendly way of life.
Hope this helps.
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As above.
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Precision forestry as related to climate change may be an added advantage to you because it is a source of mitigating climate change as carbon sequestration is the order of the day. Precision forestry to me is seen as establishing forest with a unique purpose either for profitability or for balancing natural ecosystem .
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Because there are variations between different ET estimations methods.
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Dear Nilsen,
No, my question is about percent error that can be acceptable in using the alternative methods to estimate ET compare with ET0 (FAO56PM as a reference to estimate ET) when limited data is accessible.
In daily and monthly scaly to be exact.
Moreover, are there any papers to compare the acceptable %E in each method e.g. Makkink, Turc, Hargraveas and etc. ?
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I have 20 years continuous data on beech seed production. Even though my data are spatially limited to one region, I'm observing that seed production in beech is increasing in frequency and size over the last few years. In particular, 2009, 2011 and 2013 were characterized by heavy seed production. Does anyone has similar data to verify this occurrence - beech seed production could be synchronous over large areas
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A good seed crop of Tilia cordata is a good predictor for winter breeding in bank vole and HFRS epidemics in human.
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Please can anyone help me to identify suitable field sites?
I plan to make a study of plant competition by elevation and need relatively intact elevation gradients that go all the way from tropical forest to the high elevation treeline. But as we would need to revisit sites regularly it'd be best if there was easy access to the gradient (road or similar). Easy access and low human impacts is not a combination anywhere I know but may be associated with certain sites, e.g., roads to mountain top telecommunication stations in National Parks or similar. (I don't mind some localized disturbance if we can find intact sites readily enough).
All suggestions welcome!
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Hi Douglas! I work in a place ubicated in the tropical forest of Costa Rica (Central America) called CATIE (www.catie.ac.cr). It´s an institution dedicated to research and high education, and i did my M.Sc. research on altitudinal gradients here in Costa Rica (Zamora, J.C. 2011. Implications of the climate change for the storage of carbon and the richness of species in natural forests in Costa Rica. Thesis M.Sc. Turrialba, Costa Rica. CATIE. 70 p.). Now as an indirect consequence of my thesis, there is a project site in an altitudinal gradient (part of a regional project CLIMIFORAD www.climiforad.org) that is destinated to understand the effects of climate, soil and vegetation over the ecosistemic process, among others themes. It has the characteristics that you seek, and there is 5 more thesis projects developed, and others working in this moment. If you want more detail information you can contact to the project responsibles here in CATIE: Bryan Finegan (bfinegan@catie.ac.cr) and Luis Diego Delgado (ddelgado@catie.ac.cr), or visit the page http://catie.ac.cr/en/forests/work-units/ecology-chair and search in "areas of work". I hope that this answer will be helpful.
Cheers,
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Satellite medium resolution images and GIS.
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Hi Haddouche. I run a Forest Finance Risk Network working with insurers who assess fire risk and investors who are interested in fire risk. I wrote a brief that summarises the application of GIS to assessing fire risk and gives links to experts who work in this field and datasets/sources of information You can download the fire risk brief for free from here: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~gpatenau/ForestFinance/Forest_Finance_Risk_Network/Publications.html Hope its useful. Kind regards Susan
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How about the assumption that after an initial period of increasing growth, the mass growth rate of individual trees declines with increasing tree size?
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Yes, I agree with you Rudiger and Oskar...
the point is different scale, single trees and stand...
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Heraclitus wrote ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.’ In other words, aspirations to revert to a previous state may not be feasible under changing circumstances. ‘Restoration’ is a common conservation objective, but in forest systems it is often a long slow process, based on the growth of trees. Given that we’re seeing and predicting environmental change that is rapid in comparison to restoration timescales, do you think restoration is a reasonable objective? What are the alternatives?
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Yes Panta rei (all is changing) ....how much should we put back the ecological clock?.In my opinion there is no reference state for a system to refer restoration to. The usual state of affairs in living systems like forests is one of systems fluctuating around some trend (increasing or decreasing) or stable average; however, sporadically, this condition is interrupted by an abrupt shift to a radically different regime. Disturbance can be deemed as an event causing departure of a living system from the ‘‘normal range’’ of conditions typical of its basin of attraction. The apparent paradox that disruption of the existing order (i.e., disorder) and persistence (i.e., order, stability) always coexist in living systems such as forests is addressed by the concept of resilience, defined as the amount of disturbance a system can absorb without shifting into an alternative state and losing function and services. Such a concept seeks to explain how disorder and order usually work together, allowing living systems to assimilate disturbance, innovation, and change, while at the same time maintaining characteristic structures and processes. Restoration should go along with this line as it should address the resilience capacity of a system. The main aim of restoration could be then restoring this capacity in order to maintain characteristic structures and processes of systems within the same basin of attraction.
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Historical climate change has had a profound effect on current biogeography, so we can expect our ongoing and rapid climate change, to have as great an effect on flora and fauna. Climate change has important implications for nearly every aspect of life on Earth, and effects are already being felt.
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Dr. Mal Lushaj,
In general, territory of Russia, Canada are the most affected by climate changes in recent years. As plant pathologist, I see the major threat to flora from increased frequency and magnitude of abiotic stresses (frost, heat, drought, flooding, unusual temperature - warm at the middle of winter, cold waves at summer), and spreading on new pests and pathogens to North. We have several examples of rapid (in 2-5 years) spreading of new more termophilic plant pathogenic bacteria in Russia - Dickeya sp., Erwinia amylovora, Acidovorax sp., Ralstonia solanacearum, phytoplasmas, and plant viruses. Termophilic fugi like Fusarium and Vericillium became predomonant soil-born pathogens in new areas.
There are some examples of 1-2 additional pest generations in Northern areas, and those summer generations are several folds more infected by viruses, mycoplasmas and bacteria, and work as disease vectors. There are many facts of moving of insects, spiders, birds for 200-400 km to North within a few last years.
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Costa Rica is striving to be the first carbon neutral country in the world. I saw a lot of young palm oil plantations going in and am curious about how this might impact the regional carbon balance. Can anyone recommend papers on the state of knowledge of carbon uptake by palm plantations?
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These are all great references, thank you!
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27th August 2007 - wet downburst on Latium region (central Italy) hit 600 sqkm: example of big trees uprooted.
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Dear Rosanna, uprooting of the trees depend on many parameters specially water condition of soil and texture as well as tree species. As I see in your picture i think its a big red oak uprooted. How can an oak tree uprooted is a surprising question, because Quercus species have deep and strong root systems even on fine textured soils. Check if the tree roots are not affected by any pest and/or fungi.
Refer to these article for more info:
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I need to locate regions were deforestation has occurred significantly during the 20th century so as to generate changes in the hydrological cycle, but the problem is that deforestation geographical and quantitative information at global scales is only available for recent time periods.
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Thanks Hammad and Kasper, your recommendations were just what I needed.
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I am working on vegetation phenology by using an RS time series. For data analysis, I need to do a statistical computation like partial least-squares regression, MANOVA etc. All my data is made in the format of ArcGIS 10.0 Grid and ERDAS 9.1 image.
So I want to know the following:
1. Are there any useful tools for spatial statistical computation of gridded time series?
2. Is there an R package to direct process ArcGIS 10.0 Grid and ERDAS 9.1 image?
3. Is it possible to use R functions or packages (mainly for grid calculation) in ArcGIS 10.0 platform?
I would sincerely appreciate any recommendations.
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The R package 'raster' is pretty handy, it can read arcgis and erdas grids and images either directly or in exported formats. It also allows for statistical analyses on raster : http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/raster.pdf.
Hope that helps.
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I was wondering what kind of models people use to estimate potential ET for forests? Any reliable models out there? I understand the FAO reference model or Hamon's methods give lower values than actual ET for forests in hot and wet regions.
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From a plant ecophysiologist's perspective, hydrological models' handling of ET is potentially laden with high error ! However, at scales larger than a stand, especially when scaling up to a large catchment or river basin, i guess that the errors in all the water balance components also increase, thereby decreasing the relative error of ET with respect to other water inputs and outputs. The error in models' ET estimates culd also depend on the nature of the catchment. For instance, closed catchments like Hubbard Brook watershed have a clear partitioning of precip into runoff and ET, as the underlying bedrock is impermeable to water and the vadose zone is shallow, hence change in soil moisture storage is of a much smaller magnitude than rain, runoff and hence rain-runoff = ET. In this case, at least on a monthly or annual scale, ET estimates would be quite accurate. However in subtropical or tropical catchments with low topo relief, all bets are off, and hydro software could have huge errors in ET estimates. Even though they may have LAI and veg ht, still there are many other plant factors that lead to interspecific variation in transpiration. For instance, increasing salinity in estuaries can shut down transpiration in freshwater lens dependant vegetation for weeks. These trees still have green leaves (higher LAI than drought-stressed leaf drop), hence models would estimate higher ET than there actually is. or there can be species like eucalyptus that transpire much more than other species, while having not that big diff in LAI. In the end, its a matter of scale, but even a 20% error in ET at a basin level can have huge effects on estimation of other components like groundwater recharge, esp in tropical climates. I suppose more work is required to parametrize these models, and calibrate them, thats the hard part.
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My idea is to simulate highly forested landscapes from 2010 to 2050. I have done spatio-temporal change analysis from 1973 to 2010. I want to model by accounting the change rate and project it to 2050.
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The short answer is YES. There are a number of widely accepted models that are readily available.
1. As one of the developers of an earlier version of the model, I would also recommend the CLUE-s model. I am not 100% sure that a running version is still available, but that is easy to find out. CLUE can deal with most type of land use changes.
2. GEOMOD (part of the freely available IDRISI software) is a simpler, yet sometimes good enough model.
3. If your interest is specifically in deforestation models, DINAMICA (although I think it is called differently now) might be good. It is developed for Brazil and does a good job on particularly the influences of roads.
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In terms of soil type, climate, slope terrain, wind speed, etc.
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The IEC Standard is a good design outline, but for construction purposes in keeping with Behrouz's question it offers only a basic check list of topics for expansion. Every site is different as are the contractors/subcontractors charged with construction activities.
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We are studying the possible effects of climate change in protected areas and biological corridors, and we need a methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of that before climate change. Our principal objective is to evaluate the vulnerability of natural ecosystems in Costarican landscapes.
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An accepted goal of conservation is to build a conservation network that is resilient to environmental change. Effective corridors should provide suitable and reliable connectivity among habitats for species mobile or less mobile under uncertainty and change. The modelling approach is widely used in this respect, but it is based often on a "static" vision of landscapes (i.e. the cartography of land uses/covers) and does not consider that landscapes (habitats included) are dynamic and so are continuously changing. Indeed, they do change either under different seasonal conditions, or under multiple driving forces like, for instance, climate change. As a result, what we are looking for, i.e. effective corridors, can systematically change on the map, and what is suitable as corridor under certain conditions could not be suitable when season, conditions or the set of focal species are changed. Just because we are not so good in predicting the future and what could be a suitable network sustaining biological diversity and gene exchange, we have to rely on past time series (at a suitable scale) to define the trajectory of every landscape piece to see weather it is predictable or not, that is, if it is persistent or not. Once you get a "predictability" map then you can think of applying different modelling tools to derive, under uncertainty; what possibly could be an effective corridor network for the future. So you could discover that along with "classical" green and blue ways other elements in the landscape could be crucial for the network based on their predictability. You could also discover which unpredictable landscape pieces are crucial for the maintenance of the overall connectivity in the face of climate change and try to transform them in "persistent" through planning and management efforts. See, for instance, the paper "Highlighting order and disorder in social–ecological landscapes to foster adaptive capacity and sustainability" recently appeared in Landscape Ecology.
The same principle should be applied to connectivity for marine systems (see Modeling population connectivity by ocean currents, a graph-theoretic approach for marine conservation appeared in Landscape Ecology). Indeed, for many marine species, population connectivity is determined largely by ocean currents transporting larvae and juveniles between distant patches of suitable habitat. So, connectivity relies on the persistence of ocean currents suggesting areas that might be prioritized for marine conservation efforts and that are working like "stepping stones" in the maintenance of the overall network. On the other hand, you might identify "new" candidate stepping stone areas in case of predicted changes in the oceanic current pattern due to climate change. Unfortunately most of marine biologists and ecologists involved in marine conservation do not consider the importance of ocean currents.
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Climate change through natural phenomena is already having dramatic effects on forests, natural resources and people's livelihoods. We know, during the past century, the Earth has warmed by approximately 0.7°C. Unless we take measures to address climate change, temperatures could rise even more rapidly, by between 1.4°C and 5.8°C, during the next 100 years. Poor people in developing countries are particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, not least because they often live and work in the very areas where natural disasters most often occur: flood plains, drought, mountainsides and deltas.
We face two major challenges. We must reduce the vulnerability of those sectors which are most sensitive to climate variability, namely forests, energy and water resources. And we must “climate proof” future development activities. Most countries have already defined adaptation plans or projects, but few are considering forests in adaptation. We need to include forests in climate change adaptation policies for two reasons:
• because they are vulnerable;
• because they play a key role in reducing the vulnerability of society to losses from climate change.
Our twin goals are to ensure that forestry policy and practice adequately address the need to protect forest-dependent livelihoods from adverse climate change and to ensure that adaptation strategies adequately incorporate improved forest management. Within 5 years, CIFOR's research will have informed the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change on how it can adopt a set of tested methods for forest-related vulnerability assessments, set criteria for adaptive management of forests. We also will influence forest-related adaptation policies in at least five countries.
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I've been thinking about adaptation in forests, particularly in forests where long-lived trees are a key objective of management, such as forests managed for biodiversity. My conclusion is that in these circumstances adaptation is NOT a particularly helpful concept for us. Why? Simply because of the difficulty of answering the question "adapting to what?".
Here's an example. Part of my job relates to semi-natural pine forests in Scotland, where we need at least some of the trees to reach ages of 300-400 years. So unless someone can convincingly tell me what changes will occur in the growing environment of these trees over 3-400 years, how can I plan any adaptation? How can we reach any useful conclusions about the way we should modify our forests to 'pre-adapt' them to future stresses, when we don't know what those stresses will be - particularly the interaction of pests/pathogens with climate change?
I'm coming to the conclusion that in the absence of knowing what to adapt to , the best thing we can do is add redundancy to our forests - principally by making them more diverse, so that we do not rely on any single species to provide the ecosystem functions we want to protect. This is a conclusion that relates specifically to the growing of big old trees, where the rate of environmental change is faster than the required lifespan of the individuals we're growing.
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"Pretending that in the water springs forests and riparian forests we are able to find remanent trees, maybe we can extract some wood samples, and assess the isotopic ratios to prove that this deforestation has an impact on the water availability."
Are stable isotopes in tree rings can be used to asses the water availability and water basing production?
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I think yes. Please contact Dr R R Yadav (rryadav2000@gmail.com) who has done work on this aspect
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I am looking for a suitable methodology of above ground carbon stock assessment for a sorghum farm
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Dear Hilda, you have any references for calculating C from 50% dry biomass
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How well can we expect the program to succeed especially with generally poor administration and near lack of authentic and standard database? Is Remote Sensing application the only answer? And what about the social benefits?
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Ideally REDD and REDD+ would help the country substantially, particularly for countries such as India who has conservation tradition. At the same tone I must add that who helps REDD and REDD+ is a quiestionable issues. This might bring in some funds to the country, but given that India's implementation system is slow and non innovative it is tough to imagine that it helps the people in need. First of all this can only be implemented with very high technical sophistication and level of capacity of the local need to be very high. Thus, REDD and REDD+ supporting communities seems quite bleak.
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After REDD the UN is coming up with improved and better equipped REDD+ program for forest conservation. Do you think this would help, when the position of much hyped kyoto protocol itself is uncertain?
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I think those are great points, I would agree. Tackling climate change via CO2 emissions specifically is extremely difficult, and although it's a comprehensive solution, it's much more difficult. Whereas specific proposals on a smaller scale, such as deforestation projects in specific countries, biodiversity preservation in certain areas, etc are all more feasible and therefore (in my mind) more likely to get done on a reasonable timescale.