The book is a civil engineering handbook on winch and cable systems. The handbook may be used as textbook for university studies in civil engineering and forestry and as the basis for studies in schools on a technical level. It should be a useful reference book for construction engineers, civil engineers, logging engineers, foresters and leaders of operational activities under difficult terrain conditions. The content in the book is based on more than 35 years experience with practical winch and cable operations. As a leader of the Norwegian Institute of Forest Operations, the author has carried out research work in this field since 1947. The Institute is the owner of yarders, winches, cable cranes etc., and with its own cable crews the Institute operates as a contractor in its own research forests as well as in other state or privately owned forests throughout Norway. The research work also includes other cable crane operations in Norway and other countries. As the leader of the Joint FAO/ECE/ILO Study Group on Mechanized Forest Operations the author studied cable operations in most of the Eastern and Western European countries. As president of the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations the author visited most forest countries in the world. Information from research and practical cable crane operations were collected. The handbook is based on material on winch and cable systems used in Japan, New Zealand, Soviet Union, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern United States, Western United States and British Columbia.

Spatial Analysis for Radar Remote Sensing of Tropical Forests is based on the authors' extensive involvement in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mapping projects, targeting the health of an earth ecosystem with great relevance for climate change studies: the tropical forests. The subject is developed from a vantage point provided by analysis in a combined space, scale (frequency), time, wavelength, polarization domain. The combination of space and scale offers the capability to zoom in and out like a virtual microscope to the resolution in tune with the underlying ecological phenomenon. It also enables statistical measures (correlations) related to the forest spatial distribution in case of backscatter, or to the canopy height variations in case of interferometric observations. The time dimension brings into play measures of the ecosystem dynamics, such as the flooding extent in the swamp forests, deforestation or degradation events. Wavelength and polarization agility extend the abovementioned capabilities by radar observations that are in tune with particular characteristics of the forest and terrain layers. The book's spotlight is on radar spatial random fields, these being populated by either backscatter observations or elevation data from interferometric SAR. The basic tenet here is that the spatial statistic of the fields measured by the wavelet variance (in stationary or non-stationary situations) carries fingerprints of the forest structure. Features: Uniquely focused on specific techniques that provide multi-resolution spatial and temporal analysis of forest structure characteristics and changes. Examines several large and important international remote sensing projects aimed at documenting entire tropical ecosystems. Provides novel wavelet methods for tropical forest structural measures. As the first book on this topic, this composite approach appeals to both students learning through important case studies and to researchers finding new ideas for future studies.

This book describes the scientific principles that are used throughout the world to ensure the rapid, healthy growth of forest plantations. As the population of the world increases so does the amount of wood people use. Large areas of natural forests are being cleared every year and converted to other uses. Almost as large an area of plantation forests is being established annually to replace those lost natural forests. Eventually, plantations will produce a large proportion of the wood used around the world for firewood, building, the manufacture of paper and bioenergy. Forest plantations can also provide various environmental benefits including carbon storage, rehabilitation of degraded land, serving as disposal sites for various forms of industrial or agricultural waste and enhancing biodiversity in regions that have been largely cleared for agriculture. Whatever their motivation, plantation forest growers want their plantations to be healthy and grow rapidly to achieve their purpose as soon as possible. This book discusses how this is done. It is written for a worldwide audience, from forestry professionals and scientists through to small plantation growers, and describes how plantations may be grown responsibly and profitably.

Due to the complexity of operational forestry problems, computing applications are becoming pervasive in all aspects of forest and natural resource management. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to computers and their applications in forest and natural resource management and is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students in forestry and natural resources. It introduces state-of-the-art applications for several of the most important computer technologies in terms of data acquisition, data manipulation, basic programming techniques, and other related computer and Internet concepts and applications. This book consists of six parts and 19 chapters.

Forestry today, like many other sectors that traditionally rely on material goods, faces significant global drivers of societal change that are less often addressed than the environmental concerns commonly in the spotlight of scientific, political, and news media. There are three major interconnected issues that are challenging forestry at its foundation: urbanization, tertiarization, and globalization. These issues are at the core of this book. The urbanization of society, a process in development from the first steps of industrialization, is particularly significant today with the predominance and quick growth rate of the world's urban population. Ongoing urbanization is creating new perspectives on forestry, inducing changes in its social representation, and changing lifestyles and practices with a tendency toward dematerialization. The process of urbanization is also creating a disconnect and in some ways is leaving behind rurality, the sector of society where forestry has traditionally developed and taken place over centuries. The second issue covered in this book is the tertiarization of the economy. In society today, the sector of services largely dominates the economy and occupies the major part of the world's active population. This ongoing process modifies professional modalities and ways of life and opens new doors to forests through the immaterial goods they provide. It also profoundly changes the framework, rules, processes, means of production, exchanges between economic factors, and the processes of innovation. The third issue is undoubtedly globalization in its economic, political, and social components. Whether it's through bridging distances, crossing borders, accelerating changes, standardizing practices, leveling hierarchical structures, or pushing for interdependence, globalization impacts everyone, everywhere in multiple ways. Forestry is no exception. Forestry in the Midst of Global Changes focuses on these global drivers of change from the perspective of their relationships with how society functions. By analyzing them in depth through multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and even transdisciplinary approaches, this book is helping to design the forestry of tomorrow.

Despite carefully constructed conservation interventions, deforestation in Indonesia is not being stopped. This book identifies why large-scale international forest conservation has failed to reduce deforestation in Indonesia and considers why key stakeholders have not responded as expected to these conservation interventions. The book maps the history of deforestation in Indonesia in the context of global political economy, exploring the relationship between international trade, the interests and ideology behind global sustainability programmes and the failures of forest conservation in Indonesia. Global economic and political ideologies are shown to have profoundly shaped deforestation. The author argues that the same forces continue to prevent positive outcomes. Case study chapters analyse three major international programmes: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), the Norway-Indonesia bilateral partnership, and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Indonesia. The findings provide insight into the failures of global climate change policy and suggest how the book's theoretical model can be used to analyse other complex environmental problems. The book is a useful reference for students of environmental science and policy, political theory, international relations, development and economics. It will also be of interest to forestry professionals and practitioners working in NGOs.

This new textbook on remote sensing and digital image processing of natural resources includes numerous practical, problem-solving exercises, applications of sensors and satellite systems using remote sensing data collection resources with emphasis on free and open-source platform R. It explains basic concepts of remote sensing and multidisciplinary applications using R language and R packages, by engaging students in learning theory through hands-on, real-life projects. All chapters are structured with learning objectives, computation, questions, solved exercises, resources and research suggestions. Features 1. Explains the theory of passive and active remote sensing and its applications in water, soil, vegetation, and atmosphere. 2. Covers data analysis in free and open-source (FOSS) R platform, which makes remote sensing accessible to anyone with a computer. 3. Includes case studies from different environments with free software algorithm and R toolset for active learning and learn-by-doing. 4. Provides hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter and encourages readers to understand the potential and the limitations of the environments, remote sensing targets and process. 5. Explores current trends and developments in remote sensing in homework assignments with data to further explore the use of free multispectral remote sensing data, including very high spatial resolution data sources for target recognition with image processing techniques. While the focus of the book is on environmental and agriculture engineering, it can be applied widely to a variety of subjects such as physical, natural, and social sciences. Students in upper-level undergraduate or graduate programs, taking courses in Remote Sensing, Geoprocessing, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geosciences, Environmental Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Biology, and Hydrology will also benefit from the learning objectives in the book. Professionals who use remote sensing and digital processing will also find this text enlightening.

Green pesticides, also called ecological pesticides, are pesticides derived from organic sources which are considered environmentally friendly and are causing less harm to human and animal health and to habitats and the ecosystem. Essential oils based insecticides started have amazing features. This book gives a full spectrum of the whole range of essential oil based pesticides that may be used in pest control. It discusses the uses and limitations, including the recent advances in this area. It describes the metabolism and mode of action, and provides the present status of essential oil based pesticide residues in foodstuffs, soil and water.

This book summarizes a long-term research project addressing land and water use in the irrigated areas of the Aral Sea basin. In an interdisciplinary approach, natural and human sciences are combined to elucidate the challenges of economic transition that affect the use of land, water and biological resources, ecological sustainability, economic efficiency and the livelihoods of the local population. The research focuses on Khorezm, a region in Uzbekistan, located on the Amudarya river, in the heart of Central Asia. A series of chapters describes the biophysical environment and the aspects of society and institutions that shape land and water use. The book discusses options and tools to improve land and water management, and to reform the economic system management, based on agronomic, hydrological, economic ans social studies and modeling. The insights are not only important for Uzbekistan, but for all countries in transitions and irrigated dryland areas elsewhere.

This brief reviews the pollination aspects of both wild and domesticated fruit tree species in a global climate change context. It explores cross-pollination mediated by insects, vertebrates and abiotic factors, self-pollination and their global warming implications. The authors identify the link between abiotic factors such as precipitation and severe droughts in the context of tree pollination and climate change. Furthermore, pollination and conservation implications in agriculture as well as wild tree populations are explored. Emphasis has been given to fruit trees growing in tropical, subtropical and temperate environments.

This Third Edition of Principles of Seed Science and Technology. like the first two editions. is written for the advanced undergraduate student or lay person who desires an introduction to the science and technology ofseeds. The first eight chapters presentthe seed as abiologicalsystemand coverits origin. development. composition. function (and sometimes nonfunctionJ, performance and ultimate deterioration. The last seven chapters present the fundamentals ofhow seedsare produced. conditioned. evaluated and distributed in our modern agricultural society. A new chapter on seed enhancement has been added to reflect the significant advancements made in the last 10 years on new physiological and molecular biology techniques to further enhance seed performance. Because of the fundamental importance of seeds to both agriculture and to all of society. we have taken great care to present the science and technology of seeds with the respect and feeling this study deserves. We hope that this feeling will becommuni cated to our readers. Furthermore. we have attempted to present information in a straight-forward. easy-to-read manner that will be easily understood by students and lay persons alike. Special care has been taken to address both current state-of-the-art as well as future trends in seed technology. . We believe this Third Edition represents a new level in presenting information that appeals to advanced undergraduate students as well as to those desiring more fundamental information on seed form and function. At the same time. it continues to havethestrengths ofthe firsttwoeditions.initsreadabilityaswellas itscomprehensive coverage of the broader area of seed science and technology."

In general, subsistence economies in developing countries are biomass economies. Housing itself, energy, furniture and utensils are still biomass products. The yield of trees and shrubs provides thatch, fodder and a host of other products which serve each family household. Woody biomass yields food for people and animals.;Deforestation is an erosion of local entitlement to subsistence resources as well as being an environmental problem that destroys local, national and global common property resources. The challenge for foresters and other rural development professionals is to build new landscapes which provide a range of biomass products to local users. This text will contribute to that task by helping professionals see new ooportunities by working with, not against, local people.;Foresters have traditionally increased wood supplies with large scale approaches that favoured monoculture plantations and the policing of forests and woodlands to address wood removal. Their rationale has been to plant as many trees as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, and all too often, decisions to spend large sums of money planting trees have been taken without considering other options. Fortunately a re-thinking of the biomass problem is under way, and this new thinking and its options are what this book describes.;This text is, of course, addressed to foresters, but its practical approach is worth the attention of all rural development practitioners, as well as individuals within a range of professional backgrounds from engineering to sociology.

This book provides one of the most detailed and comprehensive examinations of the Moroccan argan tree, the products derived from it and its cultural significance. The Moroccan argan trade is booming, but as the tree provides important ecological functions and plays an important role, both financially and culturally, for the Amazigh (Berber) people it has become a key topic of debate. This book thoroughly examines the production stories, benefits and impacts and provides a value-chain analysis which compares different cooperatives and approaches to production. It assesses the fair-trade approaches and attempts at sustainable production of the bio-trade resource. While being a vital source of income, the argan tree has a significant cultural importance to the Indigenous people and the book assesses the impact of the argan trade on their well-being, community and livelihoods. It examines Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property issues relating to the trade, as well as Berber-state law and politics. Assessing factors relating to legal and economic geography international trade, socio-cultural and human-nature relationships, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the argan tree which will appeal to students, scholars and practitioners.

The integration of tree and other farming can establish a sounder ecological balance and greater productivity of food and materials for clothing, fuel and shelter. The book suggests planting and cropping methods, and a range of potentially useful trees.

This book is a product of the initial phase of a broader study evaluating the voluntary and regulatory compliance protocols that are used to account for the contributions of forests in U.S.-based greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation programs. The research presented here is particularly concerned with these protocols' use of the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data to describe forest conditions, ownership, and management scenarios, and is oriented towards providing regulators and other interested parties with an objective comparison of the options, uncertainties, and opportunities available to offset GHG emissions through forest management. Chapters focus on the protocols for recognizing forest carbon offsets in the California carbon cap-and-trade program, as described in the Compliance Offset Protocol; U.S. Forest Projects (California Air Resources Board, 2011). Readers will discover the protocols used for quantifying the offset of GHG emissions through forest-related project activity. As such, its scope includes a review of the current methods used in voluntary and compliance forest protocols, an evaluation of the metrics used to assign baselines and determine additionality in the forest offset protocols, an examination of key quantitative and qualitative components and assumptions, and a discussion of opportunities for modifying forest offset protocols, in light of the rapidly changing GHG-related policy and regulatory environment. Finally, the report also discusses accounting and policy issues that create potential barriers to participation in the California cap-and-trade program, and overall programmatic additionality in addressing the needs of a mitigation strategy.

This book reveals the benefits of describing and modeling trees as the combined surface areas of their stems, and provides a concise overview of the fundamental grounds for adopting such an approach. Anatomically speaking, trees are largely thin sheaths of living cells and it is this understanding that has sparked growing interest in the study of stem surface areas in trees and stands. An overview of publications on analytical methods for the dynamics and structure of forest stands based on stem surface area is also provided. The approach described here gives readers a chance to rethink some models that were popular for decades, while also offering a glance into future research. The application of a simple geometrical model of a forest stand has made it possible to reexamine a highly promising model, the self-thinning rule, which has been a subject of a protracted discussion for the past few decades. Further, the analysis presented here can serve as the basis for predicting forest stand increments, a topic that calls for further development.

In spite of all the efforts made in fire prevention and suppression, every year about 45 000 forest fires occur in Europe, burning ca. 0.5 million hectares of forests and other rural lands. The management of these burned forests has been given much less attention than fire prevention or fire suppression issues, but the post-fire management of burned areas raises strong concerns (economic and social impacts, soil erosion and water quality, biodiversity loss, forest restoration). Although there are a few publications which address post-fire management, the focus of these has been either on general approaches to restoration or specific topics such as preventing post-fire soil erosion. This book is about the post-fire management of fire-prone forest types in southern Europe. It provides the first comprehensive overview of the topic, ranging from stand-level to landscape-level management, and from emergency actions to long-term restoration approaches.

This book investigates the potential need for an international convention on forests and establishes a multifunctional concept of forests as a cornerstone for international forest regulation. Accordingly, it examines a variety of international instruments pertaining directly or indirectly to forests and explores their entangled, fragmented nature. While contending that the lack of consistency in international law impedes the development of a stand-alone international forest convention, at the same time it argues that the lessons learned from fragmentation as well as from the history of forest discourse on the international level open up new options for the regulation of forests in international law, based on (new) concepts of coordination and cooperation.

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) has emerged as one of the most promising remote sensing technologies to provide data for research and operational applications in a wide range of disciplines related to management of forest ecosystems. This book provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of the research and application of ALS in a broad range of forest-related disciplines, especially forest inventory and forest ecology. However, this book is more than just a collection of individual contributions – it consists of a well-composed blend of chapters dealing with fundamental methodological issues and contributions reviewing and illustrating the use of ALS within various domains of application. The reviews provide a comprehensive and unique overview of recent research and applications that researchers, students and practitioners in forest remote sensing and forest ecosystem assessment should consider as a useful reference text.

This book dealt with a number of issues under the broad subject matter of protected area focusing on the policy of collaborative management as a means to augment the forest conservation activities and enhance community development in Bangladesh. Studies covered in the book emerged with the success stories of protected area co-management, both in terms of community development and biodiversity conservation. Significant level of development was noticed in the socio-economic conditions of the surrounding communities. Empowerment and improved social dignity of women participants signifies the initiation of co-management approach. The principles of participatory governance were found reasonably well reflected in legal and policy frameworks. Based on the lessons from the studies, a general metaphysical model, namely 'Spider-web model of protected area co-management' has been developed that can be potentially applicable in countries where local communities rely heavily on protected areas.

This book is written for scientists and practitioners interested in deepening their knowledge of the sustainable production of bioenergy from wood in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Utilising the value chain concept, this book outlines the necessary aspects for managing sustainable bioenergy production. A wide range of topics is covered including biomass localization, modelling and upscaling, production management in woodlands and plantations, and transport and logistics. Biomass quality and conversion pathways are examined in order to match the conversion technology with the available biomass.  A section is dedicated to issues surrounding sustainability. The issues, covered in a life-cycle assessment of the bioenergy system, include socio-economic challenges, local effects on water, biodiversity, nutrient-sustainability and global impacts. Through this holistic approach and supporting examples from tropical and sub-tropical countries, the reader is guided in designing and implementing a value chain as the main management instrument for sustainable wood.

"The PhD thesis written by Mr. Ackermann is an outstanding and in-depth scientific study that closes a research gap and paves the way to new developments. Despite the extremely complex issues, his work is very understandable and excellently elaborated." Prof. Dr. Christiane Schmullius "The PhD thesis written by Mr. Ackermann is an excellent and very comprehensive work performed at the highest scientific level. It examines in detail the potential of SAR data with regards to the derivation of forest stem volume in the temperate latitudes. The work belongs to a technically complex field. Nevertheless, Mr. Ackermann has succeeded in presenting the content in a clear and understandable way." Dr. Christian Thiel "The proposed document is overall of very good quality. Mr. Ackermann has done an exhaustive analysis of the in-situ data available on the Thuringian forest and was able to derive Growing Stocking Volume using L- and X-band spaceborne SAR data. The document is very well structured with a good split of information between the core of the text presented in the 6 chapters and the 4 annexes, which contain detailed results. Mr. Ackermann's English grammar is excellent and his syntax is crystal clear, making his document pleasant to read. The way arguments are presented is logical and Mr. Ackermann gives a lot of attention to ensuring that sound explanations properly support these arguments." Dr. Maurice Borgeaud

A new era in wildland fuel sciences is now evolving in such a way that fire scientists and managers need a comprehensive understanding of fuels ecology and science to fully understand fire effects and behavior on diverse ecosystem and landscape characteristics. This is a reference book on wildland fuel science; a book that describes fuels and their application in land management.  There has never been a comprehensive book on wildland fuels; most wildland fuel information was put into wildland fire science and management books as separate chapters and sections.  This book is the first to highlight wildland fuels and treat them as a natural resource rather than a fire behavior input. Moreover, there has never been a comprehensive description of fuels and their ecology, measurement, and description under one reference; most wildland fuel information is scattered across diverse and unrelated venues from combustion science to fire ecology to carbon dynamics.  The literature and data for wildland fuel science has never been synthesized into one reference; most studies were done for diverse and unique objectives.  This book is the first to link the disparate fields of ecology, wildland fire, and carbon to describe fuel science. This just deals with the science and ecology of wildland fuels, not fuels management. However, since expensive fuel treatments are being planned in fire dominated landscapes across the world to minimize fire damage to people, property and ecosystems, it is incredibly important that people understand wildland fuels to develop more effective fuel management activities.

Forest soil characteristics are not only unique but their interpretation also differs from cropland soils. Just as there are diverse forest types, there are many soil variants that need different management. Today, forest plantations are being intensively managed for profitable timber, pulpwood and energy production. Site selection, species selection, site productivity evaluation, silvicultural treatments, and soil amendments need crucial soil information. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the physical, chemical and biological properties of forest soils and their implications on forest vegetation. Topics discussed include: major forest types of the world and their associated soils; forest biomass and nutrient dynamics; organic matter turnover and nutrient recycling; forest soil disturbance; forest soil and climate change; and forest soil management and silvicultural treatments.

Farmers Agricultural policymakers Environmentalists