Simulation and sustainability of cork oak stands.

Abstract

Cork oak (Quercus suber) stands (montados) are the most common forest system in southern Portugal. Actual modifications in the management of this agroforestry system have reduced its resilience, compromising sustainability. Simulation results, obtained with a spatial single-tree growth model, were used to test the influence of different strategies of regeneration and management on the sustainability of the system. Crown cover, stand structure and cork production were the variables used to build a sustainability evaluation method.

Optimal Regeneration Regime under Continuous Crown Cover Requirements in Cork Oak Woodlands

“…CORKFITS consists of sub-models (cork, stem, tree height and crown), cork production models and mortality models (Ribeiro et al, 2003a, 2003b, 2006.…”

Global change issues in developing and emerging countries

“…Various individual growth models demonstrated to be a reliable tool to support decisions for sustainable management of these lands (Ribeiro et al, 2003). Horizontal stand structure, or positions of individual trees, is very important input for these models as it describes the stand competition situation and resources availability of individual trees.…”

Growth Modeling in Complex Forest Systems: CORKFITS a Tree Spatial Growth Model for Cork Oak Woodlands

“…that share the same growing space in a landscape characterized by its site variability especially at the soil/climate/topography levels. The production system is based on trees that create the ecological characteristics that are fundamental to the sustainability of all activities occurring at stand level (Ribeiro et al, 2003b(Ribeiro et al, , 2006. The sustainable management of the combination sets of production activities requires a good knowledge of the resilience and elasticity of the forest component in the each particular soil/climate/topographic conditions (Ribeiro et al, 2006).…”

“…CORKFITS is composed by sub growth models (cork, stem, tree height and crown), cork production models and mortality models (Ribeiro et al, 2003a(Ribeiro et al, , 2003b(Ribeiro et al, , 2006. Single trees are in cork oak woodlands subjected to natural (genetics and competition) and artificial (debark, crown pruning, root pruning) factors that affects their growth therefore there is a large amount of unexplained variability which creates problems in the modeling phase, the solutions for these problems will be discussed in the present work.…”