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Forests
Special Issues
Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation
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Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2024) | Viewed by 8220

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Guoqing Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
2. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: species distribution and niche modelling; climate change and range shift; vegetation restoration; biodiversity and distribution; GIS spatial analysis; remote sensing application analysis
Prof. Dr. Zhongming Wen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
2. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
3. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: vegetation restoration and reconstruction; grassland ecological restoration; water and soil conservation; plant functional traits; GIS spatial analysis; remote sensing application analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Changcheng Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
Interests: vegetation ecology; vegetation survey, classification and description; regional vegetation mapping; plant ecology and restoration ecology in karst area

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The expansion of population on our planet has led to increased demand for agricultural land and urban land, which has sharply reduced the amount of natural vegetation land, and especially forest land. Afforestation and reforestation have become key rescue actions to reverse this situation. The key for afforestation projects is to establish a baseline and to continuously monitor and evaluate the restored ecosystem. Therefore, developing indicators and establishing a baseline will be of great significance for afforestation projects.

This Special Issue welcomes research and review papers covering all aspects related to the implementation of indicators and baselines in afforestation projects. Research methods can involve experiments, field surveys, model simulation, scenario analysis, or GIS remote sensing analysis. The application of indicators and baselines should deepen our understanding of vegetation restoration processes, and/or convert them into forest management recommendations. Although this Special Issue is mainly focused on forest ecosystems, it also welcomes theories, methods and case studies related to grassland ecosystems and other associated ecosystems.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Tree species selection strategies;
  • Planting regionalization methods;
  • Priority afforestation areas;
  • Design of baseline and reference ecosystem;
  • Assessment of restoration process;
  • Climate change adaptation management.

Dr. Guoqing Li
Prof. Dr. Zhongming Wen
Dr. Changcheng Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest restoration
  • vegetation mapping
  • community structure and function
  • tree species selection
  • priority area for afforestation
  • climate adaptation management
  • afforestation regionalization
  • indicators and baseline

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 6113 KiB  
Article
Tradeoffs between Stand Volume and Understory Vegetation Diversity in Quercus wutaishanica Forests under Climate Change
by Bingbing Liu, Pengtao Yu, Xiao Wang, Xue Zhang, Yipeng Yu, Yanfang Wan, Yanhui Wang, Zebin Liu and Lihong Xu
Forests 2024, 15(10), 1750; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15101750 - 4 Oct 2024
Viewed by 671
Abstract
Natural forests play a crucial role in providing various ecosystem services, including timber production and biodiversity conservation. However, climate change and anthropogenic factors pose a severe threat to competing forest ecosystem services functions. Therefore, to optimize and sustainably utilize competing forest services, tradeoffs [...] Read more.
Natural forests play a crucial role in providing various ecosystem services, including timber production and biodiversity conservation. However, climate change and anthropogenic factors pose a severe threat to competing forest ecosystem services functions. Therefore, to optimize and sustainably utilize competing forest services, tradeoffs are often necessary. This study was conducted in Northwest China to explore tradeoffs aimed at improving the quality of Quercus wutaishanica Mayr natural forests under climate change conditions, focusing on stand volume, timber production, and understory vegetation diversity conservation. Data from 77 field surveys were used to construct a coupled model for stand growth, stand structure, and site conditions. Changes in understory vegetation species number (UVSN) with crown cover were quantified. These models and relationships can be used as tools to estimate tradeoffs. As stand density increased, single-tree volume decreased, whereas timber volume increased. UVSN increased and then decreased with increasing crown cover and was able to maintain a relative maximum at 0.5–0.65. Under the current climatic conditions, the optimum stand densities corresponding to 30, 40, 50, and 60 years were 1390, 1153, 1042, and 871 trees/ha, respectively, to maintain a high UVSN and adequate stand volume. When mean annual temperature rose, stand densities could be reduced to maintain high-quality timber. Although only two major services were considered, the tradeoffs presented in this study can inform future research to improve the quality of natural forests. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation)
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20 pages, 6632 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Driving Forces of Vegetation Greening on the Loess Plateau at the County Scale
by Chenxiao Kong, Jinghua Huang, Sheng Du and Guoqing Li
Forests 2024, 15(3), 486; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15030486 - 5 Mar 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1375
Abstract
China has implemented several ecological projects in the Loess Plateau region to address severe land degradation and soil erosion. Accurately assessing ecological restoration and its driving factors remains challenging. Previous studies in this area concentrated on driving factors have mainly focused on natural [...] Read more.
China has implemented several ecological projects in the Loess Plateau region to address severe land degradation and soil erosion. Accurately assessing ecological restoration and its driving factors remains challenging. Previous studies in this area concentrated on driving factors have mainly focused on natural factors at the regional or watershed scale, with limited consideration of socioeconomic factors at the county scale. In this study conducted in Huanglong County on the Loess Plateau, the focus was to fill the gaps in previous research and provide insights into the socioeconomic driving forces behind vegetation greening. Remote sensing image data (NDVI) from 1999 to 2019 were used to analyze vegetation greenness dynamics in the region. Five socioeconomic variables were considered, including afforestation intensity, deforestation intensity, agricultural intensity, village intensity, and road intensity layers, to characterize the impact of afforestation, agriculture, and urbanization policies. The RESTREND (residual trends) method was employed to assess the relative importance of climate and human activities on vegetation dynamics. This study found that temperature–NDVI relationships are more suitable for building RESTREND models than precipitation–NDVI relationships. Human activity was the main driver of vegetation dynamics, contributing 62% compared to 38% from climate change. Agricultural practices and afforestation were found to have a positive impact on ecological restoration, while deforestation and urbanization had no significant impact. These findings highlight a conceptual framework for understanding the intricate relationship between ecological restoration, climatic factors, and human activity on the Loess Plateau. This study suggests that significant progress has been made in ecological restoration through human efforts in combating land degradation. However, it emphasizes the need to strengthen natural conservation efforts and gradually transition toward restoration processes driven by natural forces for sustainable socioeconomic development. The methodology used in this study can be applied to explore the driving forces of ecological restoration in other regions facing human-driven land degradation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation)
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18 pages, 1809 KiB  
Article
Comprehensive Response of Daily Transpiration from Armeniaca sibirica Plantations to Meteorological and Soil Moisture/Temperature Conditions on the Semi-Arid Loess Plateau, China
by Xinsheng Han, Guangquan Liu, Hao Xu, Liguo Dong and Xiao Wang
Forests 2024, 15(2), 251; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15020251 - 28 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1044
Abstract
Forest transpiration plays a vital role in the regional water budget and water supply security of the semi-arid Loess Plateau of northwest China. A thorough understanding and accurate predictions of the variation in the transpiration of forests with important tree species, e.g., Armeniaca [...] Read more.
Forest transpiration plays a vital role in the regional water budget and water supply security of the semi-arid Loess Plateau of northwest China. A thorough understanding and accurate predictions of the variation in the transpiration of forests with important tree species, e.g., Armeniaca sibirica (L.) Lam., are critical for land and water management. Owing to the extreme climatic seasonality and interannual variability, detailed information on the seasonal variation in the transpiration of Armeniaca sibirica plantations and its response to climatic and soil moisture/temperature fluctuations is limited. Therefore, in this study, the sap flux density and meteorological and soil moisture/temperature conditions were continuously monitored during the growing season (May to October) in 2019–2020. The results show the four following features: (1) The mean daily transpiration of the Armeniaca sibirica plantation was 0.31 mm·day−1; (2) the daily transpiration varied nonlinearly with increasing potential evapotranspiration (PET). Transpiration first increased rapidly until reaching the PET threshold of 4 mm·day−1 and then slowly increased within the PET range of 4–8.5 mm·day−1, but thereafter, it decreased slightly when PET exceeded 8.5 mm·day−1; (3) the daily forest transpiration varied with increasing relative extractable soil water content (REW) and soil temperature (ST) following a saturated exponential function; i.e., it first increased until reaching a threshold of 0.5 of REW or 14 °C of ST, but thereafter tended to stabilize; (4) models for estimating the daily forest transpiration were established. According to these models, PET had the greatest limiting effect (32.17%) on forest transpiration during the observation period, while REW and ST showed lower limits at 7.03% and 3.87%, respectively. The findings of this study are useful for understanding and managing the hydrological effects of forests in the semi-arid Loess Plateau as a typical dryland with seasonal droughts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation)
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14 pages, 2041 KiB  
Article
Uncertainties of Climate Change on Suitable Habitat of Calligonum mongolicum Turcz. (Polygonaceae) in Desert Areas of Central Asia
by Guan Liu, Yanru Zhang, Qi Lu, Keli An, Yurong Li, Dongyang Xiong, Guoqing Li and Sheng Du
Forests 2023, 14(5), 1053; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14051053 - 20 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1779
Abstract
Understanding the climatically suitable habitat of species plays a vital role in the sustainable use and management of target species. Calligonum mongolicum Turcz., a native shrub species found in desert areas of Central Asia, is generally considered as one of the top four [...] Read more.
Understanding the climatically suitable habitat of species plays a vital role in the sustainable use and management of target species. Calligonum mongolicum Turcz., a native shrub species found in desert areas of Central Asia, is generally considered as one of the top four tree species for desertification control. However, previous works on suitable habitat simulation had focused mainly on either the national or specific geographical scales rather than entire biota scales, which have underestimated the climatic tolerance of the species. Furthermore, the uncertainty outcomes of climate change were largely ignored. With these questions, the arid regions of Central Asia were selected as our research background area. Occurrence data of C. mongolicum were obtained from various sources, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Chinese Virtual Herbarium, and the iPlant website. The maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) was used to simulate the suitable habitat change dynamics under various climate change scenarios [5 general circulation models (GCMs) × 3 shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs)]. The uncertainty of climate change induced by GCMs and SSPs were decomposed by the two-way ANOVA method. Our results show that hydrological-related variables are more important for the species’ habitat suitability than thermal-related variables. The climatic threshold for the core suitable habitat was 1–30 mm for precipitation of the coldest quarter, 14–401 mm for annual precipitation, −16.01–12.42 °C for mean temperature of the driest quarter, 9.48–32.63 °C for mean temperature of the wettest quarter, and −25.01–−9.77 °C for the minimum temperature of the coldest month. The size of suitable habitat was about 287.4 × 104 km2 under the current climate condition, located in China and Mongolia. Climate change has less impact on the total area size, but it has bigger impacts on the gain area and loss area sizes. The loss area is mainly located in the southeast boundaries, whereas the gain area is mainly located in Mongolia and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The decomposition uncertainty of climate change indicates that GCMs could explain 14.5%, 66.4%, and 97.0% of total variation, respectively, and SSPs could explain 85.5%, 33.6%, and 3.0% of the total variation for gain, loss, and total habitat sizes, respectively. Our work clearly demonstrates that while C. mongolicum has great planting potential in Central Asia under various climate change scenarios, the sensitive areas possess large uncertainties requiring long-term climate monitoring for afforestation projects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation)
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Review

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36 pages, 4153 KiB  
Review
Global Overview of the Application of the Braun-Blanquet Approach in Research
by Natalya Ivanova
Forests 2024, 15(6), 937; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15060937 - 28 May 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2160
Abstract
Environmental classifications are of paramount importance for assessing the impacts of land-use changes, for prioritizing conservation efforts, and for developing effective management strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of human activities. The aim of our research was to provide as complete an analysis [...] Read more.
Environmental classifications are of paramount importance for assessing the impacts of land-use changes, for prioritizing conservation efforts, and for developing effective management strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of human activities. The aim of our research was to provide as complete an analysis as possible of the studies that have been carried out using the Braun-Blanquet approach. The global review of studies based on the Braun-Blanquet approach includes 1168 papers and was conducted using the PRISMA 2009 methodological recommendations, strict criteria for the selection/quality of papers, and modern methods of data analysis and visualization using VOSviewer software developed by Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman (Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University in the Netherlands) (version 1.6.18), which ensures a representative sample, minimization of subjective judgements, and reliability of conclusions. It was noted that the number of publications on Braun-Blanquet is growing exponentially. This is an indication of the scientific interest in this methodology and its continuous further development. Based on a detailed analysis of the keywords, the main research directions and challenges are identified. These include improving the conceptual and methodological foundations of the Braun-Blanquet approach; improvement in regional vegetation classifications, synthesizing them and producing a comprehensive classification for large areas as a basis for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land use; expansion of the geography; compilation and updating of databases of phytosociological data; management of dynamics and vegetation; discussion of the important problem of continuity and discreteness of vegetation in the context of ecological classifications; and vegetation mapping. The top 20 journals publishing the most cited articles were identified, as well as the top 20 most cited journals whose high citation rate is due to the large number of high-quality articles. The analysis of the bibliographic network of papers in dynamics has shown that the structure of relationships is not constant and has changed significantly. The analysis of the authors’ publication activity showed that the vast majority of researchers have a low publication activity and have published only one to three papers. A peculiarity also emerges: if all the most cited authors are concentrated in Eurasia, then most of the most actively published authors are outside Eurasia. The importance of the Braun-Blanquet approach for the study and classification of forest vegetation should be emphasized. In this case, the Braun-Blanquet approach is integrated into forest typologies, increasing their ecological validity and environmental relevance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Baselines of Afforestation and Reforestation)
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