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Fra 2000 a Concept and Strategy for Ecological Zoning for the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000

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Fra 2000 a Concept and Strategy for Ecological Zoning for the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 Forestry Department Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FRA 2000 A CONCEPT AND STRATEGY FOR ECOLOGICAL ZONING FOR THE GLOBAL FOREST RESOURCES ASSESSMENT 2000 INTERIM REPORT Rome, 2 July 1999 Forest Resources Assessment Programme Working Paper 20 Rome 1999 The Forest Resources Assessment Programme Forests are crucial for the well-being of humanity. They provide foundations for life on earth through ecological functions, by regulating the climate and water resources, and by serving as habitats for plants and animals. Forests also furnish a wide range of essential goods such as wood, food, fodder and medicines, in addition to opportunities for recreation, spiritual renewal and other services. Today, forests are under pressure from expanding human populations, which frequently leads to the conversion or degradation of forests into unsustainable forms of land use. When forests are lost or severely degraded, their capacity to function as regulators of the environment is also lost, increasing flood and erosion hazards, reducing soil fertility, and contributing to the loss of plant and animal life. As a result, the sustainable provision of goods and services from forests is jeopardized. FAO, at the request of the member nations and the world community, regularly monitors the world’s forests through the Forest Resources Assessment Programme. The next report, the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000), will review the forest situation by the end of the millennium. FRA 2000 will include country-level information based on existing forest inventory data, regional investigations of land-cover change processes, and a number of global studies focusing on the interaction between people and forests. The FRA 2000 report will be made public and distributed on the world wide web in the year 2000. The Forest Resources Assessment Programme is organized under the Forest Resources Division (FOR) at FAO headquarters in Rome. Contact persons are: Robert Davis FRA Programme Coordinator [email protected] Peter Holmgren FRA Project Director [email protected] or use the e-mail address: [email protected] DISCLAIMER The Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) Working Paper Series is designed to reflect the activities and progress of the FRA Programme of FAO. Working Papers are not authoritative information sources – they do not reflect the official position of FAO and should not be used for official purposes. Please refer to the FAO forestry website (www.fao.org/fo) for access to official information. The FRA Working Paper Series provides an important forum for the rapid release of preliminary FRA 2000 findings needed for validation and to facilitate the final development of an official quality-controlled FRA 2000 information set. Should users find any errors in the documents or have comments for improving their quality they should contact either Robert Davis or Peter Holmgren at [email protected]. Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................................................3 1.1 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................................3 1.2 BACKGROUND..................................................................................................................................................................3 2 FRA 2000 REQUIREMENTS..................................................................................................................................................5 3 CONCEPT AND STRATEGY..................................................................................................................................................6 3.1 APPROACH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE FAO ECOLOGICAL ZONING..................................................................................6 3.2 KÖPPEN CLIMATIC GROUPS AND TYPES AS THE BASIS FOR A FAO GLOBAL...............................................................7 ECOLOGICAL ZONE SYSTEM .....................................................................................................................................................7 3.3 REGIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FAO GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE SYSTEM ...................................................11 3.3.1 Conceptual and Thematic Issues.............................................................................................................................11 3.3.2 Map production and Technical Issues ....................................................................................................................12 3.3.3 Potential Production Problems...............................................................................................................................12 4 CONCLUSIONS...................................................................................................................................................................13 REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................................................................14 ANNEX A: THE CANADA USA CASE STUDY – IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FAO GLOBAL ECOFLORISTIC ZONE MAPPING CONCEPT................................................................................................................15 ANNEX B. REVIEW OF EXISTING GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONING SYSTEMS..............................................23 Paper drafted by: Henk Simons, Karn Deo Singh, Zhiliang Zhu, Robert Davis, Susan Iremonger Editorial production: Patrizia Pugliese 1 Abbreviations BEF Biomass Expansion Factor BV Biomass of inventoried volume CATIE Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza Cirad Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement EDC Eros Data Centre FAO Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations FORIS Forest Resources Information System FRA Forest Resources Assessment GIS Geographic Information System SNU Sub National Unit(s) UN-ECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe VOB Volume Over Bark WD Wood Density WCMC World Conservation Monitoring Centre 2 1 Introduction 1.1 Abstract A global ecological zoning (EZ) map is needed for carrying out the “Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000” (FRA 2000) presently being facilitated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The underlying strategy for FRA’s ecological zoning closely reflects both the thematic and technical requirements of the map, and the many operational constraints for implementation. Characteristics and components of the FAO EZ classification include the use of the Köppen system (1931) as a basis for the delineation of zones. Details of the Köppen system, along with comparisons to other global-level ecological schemes demonstrate the rationale behind the FRA approach (Table 1). The mapping work will be carried out principally using regional or national “potential vegetation” maps to define boundaries of ecological zones at the global level. Although using a variety of map inputs inevitably provokes methodological problems such as edge matching across adjacent maps, a protocol for correcting such problems was successfully developed and implemented during a pilot study. The results of the North America Pilot Study illustrate the overall concept, methods, and utility of the map in an operational context (Annex A). 1.2 Background The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization regularly reports on the world’s forest resources through the Forest Resources Assessment Programme (FRA), which is now actively facilitating the execution of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000)1. Along with the core information on the state and changes in forests, FRA 2000 will report on various ecological aspects of forests. In doing so, the assessment will provide new information on forests by ecological zones and contribute to understanding the implications of forest change on biological diversity, sustainable forest management, protection and carbon-cycling processes. While the FRA 2000 EZ map is unique in its global character, a similar map was developed by FAO in 1990 for the ecological zoning of the tropics. The map was used to report forest state and change statistics by ecological zone and for stratification in deforestation modelling and the remote sensing survey. The EZ work for FRA 2000 is seen as a logical continuation and expansion of the tropical ecological zoning done for the previous assessment. Because of the limited geographic coverage and increased resolution, FRA 1990 was able to delineate detailed ecofloristic zones2, as well as at the more 1 Experts in forest resources from member countries, international and national organisations, NGO’s and individuals contributed to planning FRA 2000. During 1996, the international forestry community provided important recommendations to the planning of FRA 2000 through a number of meetings, culminating with the "Expert Consultation on Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000" held in Kotka, Finland during June 1996. This meeting, referred to as Kotka III, considered the reporting of forest information by ecological zones as a high priority and advised FAO to develop the ecological zoning map required for the task. Following Kotka III, in 1997, the Fourth Session of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF IV) expressed strong support for FRA 2000, the Kotka
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