The purpose of forest resource assessment
We are becoming increasingly aware that the resources of the Earth are limited. Our future depends on our being considerate towards, responsible for and taking a long term view of managing these resources.
Forest resource assessment measures and surveys cover several components and elements of forest ecosystems, particularly vegetation. Surveys do not cover fauna, but there are several points (such as species lists, dead wood data, etc.) that allow linkages with fauna inventories of similar magnitude and system.
Forest inventories rely on a statistical basis from designing the sample collection up to processing and analysing collected and surveyed data. Sampling covers large-scale forest surveys, which is why there is a lower (minimum) limit by which the outcomes can be interpreted, and any further resolution would result in poorer reliability and representativeness.
The key targets of forest resource assessment include:
- providing comprehensive and sound information about Hungarian forests to policy makers, members of professional leadership and other professional and social partners;
- surveying the ecological status of forests, monitoring status changes;
- surveying the economic resources of forests and providing suitable information for the sustainable management of forest resources and for preparing related long-term forecasts;
- meeting Hungarian and international requirements for the reporting of forest related data.
International definitions have been applied for the purposes of taking forest inventories so as to produce outcomes which are fully compatible with international (European and even larger-scale) databases that pose more and more exacting requirements and expectations to provide a sound basis for decision-making. Moreover, our domestic environment, including both narrower professional audiences and society at large, will definitely find important and yet unattainable pieces of information amount the outcomes of our forest inventory.
Perceiving and monitoring changes in bio-systems is of the highest priority in supporting decisions as and when they are necessary. In addition to the above, a forest inventory also serves as a monitoring tool by maintaining a uniform approach and methodology, which is indispensable for analyses, and by ensuring all of the benefits of the statistical method applied.