Continuous cover silviculture - Risks of windthrow
Objective
To produce a wind risk model thaty can be applied to any stand structure.
Summary
Existing work on the stability of forests has concentrated on the risk of wind damage to even-aged single-species conifer stands. However, other forms of forest management have increased in prevalence, such as silvicultural systems associated with continuous cover forestry. There is therefore a growing need to understand the stability of forests being transformed and managed under CCF, and of trees growing in mixed-species stands. This involves a change in emphasis from stand-level to tree-level risk.
ForestGALES is a PC-based wind risk decision support tool, developed by FR for use in even-aged conifer monocultures. Recent experimental work and analysis of historic data have enabled us to develop the underlying science to calculate risk to individual trees in stand with an irregular structure, and to add several broadleaf species into ForestGALES.
For further information see ”Tree stability and wind risk to forests” page.
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What's of interest
ForestGALES
PC-based decision support tool that enables forest managers to estimate the probability of wind damage to any conifer stand in Britain.