Tasks

The Austrian Forest Inventory is one of the most intensive national forest monitoring systems in Europe. It covers a time span of 40 years from 1961 up to now. Permanent staff guarantees harmonised field assessments as well as high quality scientific analyses. The aim of these surveys is to determine not only forest area, timber supply and periodic increment but to assess also indicators of status and changes of forest ecosystem. The results obtained from the Forest Inventory serve as an information basis for decision-making in forest policy, for forest administration and for numerous scientific investigations. In the future, they will support up-scaling efforts of other programmes.

The sampling design of the nation-wide Austrian Forest Inventory is characterised by a sample grid pattern where quadratic tracts are systematically distributed over Austria in a regular manner. Sampling units are a sample plot of 300 m2, a fixed circular plot of 21 m2 and a Bitterlich plot, all of them having the same centre at the corners of a tract. At present the 6th inventory cycle, which is the 3rd re-assessment of the permanent plots, is being undertaken. Data collection will be finished by the end of 2002, first results are expected in the middle of the year 2003.

Harmonised assessment techniques and the consistency of the statistical design over twenty years on more than 11.000 permanent plots provide a database of extraordinary scientific value, which will contribute essentially to the ongoing discussions on growth and climate changes. It helps to develop growth models applicable widely in space and time. In combination with the Forest Soil Survey, carried out under ICP Forests, the detailed results of changes in forest area, growing stock, harvest and increment allow for reliable estimates of carbon sequestration and carbon balance in the Austrian forest.

Over four decades the Austrian Forest Inventory has changed from a survey of stock and increment aiming at sustainability to a more complex monitoring system of many aspects of the ecosystem. With the current inventory special emphasis was laid on the assessment of biodiversity including genetics, species and structural level. Co-ordinates of the plots are determined using GPS equipment in order to achieve geo-references for the use of satellite images and to facilitate the retrieval of the plots in the future.

The enormous demand for information of various reporting systems within a wide range of European and world wide environmental commitments such as the Ministerial Conference on Protection of Forests, the European Forest Certification Systems, the Kyoto Process as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity requires data of high standard national inventories. The wide range of parameters assessed by Austrian Inventory in combination with the long time series of available data meets most requirements of international commitments on sustainable development and climate change.

Units

• Design, evaluation and aerial survey:    Dipl.-Ing. Richard Büchsenmeister
• Assessment methods and survey:    Dipl.-Ing. Elmar Hauk
• Logistics and database:    Dipl.-Ing. Wolfgang Russ
• Natural forests and nature protection:    Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Georg Frank

Seckendorff-Gudent-Weg 8, A-1130 Wien
Tel. +43-1-878 38 / 1225
Fax +43-1-+43-1-878 38 /1250
Email: klemens.schadauer@bfw.gv.at