Francisco Javier Bonet García, professor of the Department of Botany of the University of Granada and member of the Regional Department of Environment, has recently presented a research work under the title “Supporting tools for decision-making applied to forest management of the Sierra of Huetor Nature Reserve and Community Places of Interest (LIC) of Sierra Arana”. It has allowed him to develop a computer tool for decision-making about forest management in both reserves; the first results proved the need to gradually replace thick pine groves with another type of easier to colonizate plantations.
I many cases, environmental managers are forced to take decisions without really knowing if they are suitable or the consequences they may have because of the lack of versatile tools that allow to integrate all the information available in a theoretical model of the reality they are going to work in. This research work has been directed by Professors Manuel Chirosa Ríos and José Luis Rosúa Campos; it intends, in the author´s words. “To progress in the development of tools which allow the environmental manager to take decisions in an adaptable way and with enough scientific precision to get right”.
Geographical Information System
In this case, the research particular objective was to know which pine groves should be cleared first if we want to contribute to the regeneration of natural vegetation. “We generated – Bonet points out – a spacial model which takes into account a great part of the biophysical variables which determine regeneration ability of the vegetation: adjacent and underlying vegetation type, ground depth, potential sunshine, presence of endangered species, successional state of vegetation, dispersion ability of the seeds from patches of natural vegetation to pine groves, etc. All these variables were integrated in a knowledge base by using methods from diffused logic; the integration of all the information to obtain a final result was carried out by making use of a Geographical Information System (GIS)”.
GISs are tools which allow to work with digital cartographic information and carry out complex analysis to integrate the data. According to Bonet, “for the relation between the knowledge set out above and the GIS, we take into account that all the described variables match a knowledge layer of digital information interpretable by a GIS. The final result sets an aptitude value for every spot taken up by reafforestation pine groves according to the question raised at the beggining. Pinar groves which acquire a better aptitude are those where, accoding to our model, will produce a more effective regeneration of natural vegetation if we reduce their denseness with forest-dwelling treatments”.
To carry out this work, a detailed knowledge of the vegetation of the area of study is required. For doing it, we tackled the drawing up of a scale map of vegetation of the Natural Reserve of Sierra of Huetor by interpreting aerial photographies in false infrared color. It all was implemented in a GIS and a system of relational database management.
Effective Enviromental Management
In the short term, the results of this work will be aplicable to the area of study and it could be used to draw up a plan of use for forest resources. Specifically, it will be possible to plan the actions to substitute thich, monospecific reafforestation pine for other formations like holm-oak woods or bushes, more adapted to the natural reality of the area.
Just like this research work, all the studies carried out about this subject are integrated in the Enviromental Information Network of Andalusia, dependent on the Department of Environment, which takes care of compiling all the environmental information of interest for the correct management of natural resources in this area.
Further information: Professor Francisco Javier Bonet García.
Department of Botany. University of Granada
Department of Environment. Andalusian Council
Phone numbers: 958026083 / 651099061
E-mail: francisco.bonet.ext@juntadeandalucia.es
