Ukrainian National Forest Monitoring Program

UKRAINIAN NATIONAL FOREST MONITORING PROGRAM

The monitoring network covers main forest regions of the country and represents different geographical zones: Carpathians, Polissia (boreal forests), Forest Steppe, Steppe and Crimea. It consists of 330 plots in 18 administrative regions of Ukraine and Autonomous Republic Crimea. All methodological and network optimization work is performed by the NFC. Data on forest condition in agreed formats are gathered and stored in general database at the NFC. The NFC performs also the analysis of these data and distributes high quality information on forest condition by means of publishing scientific articles and reports, producing releases and broadcasts for mass media.

Field activity in different regions of Ukraine and preliminary data storage and processing are organized by branches and scientific research stations of the URIFFM: Steppe Branch of URIFFM, Lugansk Forest Research Station (FRS), Mariupol FRS, Krasnotrostianetska FRS, Krymska FRS, Kievska FRS, Poliss'ka FRS, Vinnitska FRS.

Current projects and main field of interest:

• Coordination of forest monitoring activity in Ukraine, development of methods for monitoring health, productivity and biodiversity of Ukrainian forests - scientific program accompanying national system of forest monitoring based on methods of the international program of Pan-European monitoring - ICP Forest (http://www.gva.es/ceam/ICP-forests/) and the USA Forest Health Monitoring Program - FHM (http://www.rfl.psw.fs.fed.us/pubs/psw-gtr-164/fulltext/buksha/buksha.html)
  
  
• Forests and climate changes investigation - a study on carbon cycle and absorption of greenhouse gases in forests, investigating forest vulnerability and assessing adaptations to climate changes, development of react strategy of forest sector in climate change conditions. Development of Joint Implementation Projects for Carbon Sequestration in Ukrainian Forest Sector under Kyoto protocol (http://www.zef.de/zef_englisch/publikation/publist_neu/publist_ecosystem_functioning.htm)
  
  
• Modelling, scenario analysis and forecasting of forest resource dynamics under anthropogenic changes of environment (air pollution and climate change), assessment of risk for different scenarios of forest management (http://www.efi.fi/projects/sceforma/)
  
  
• Development of national forest certification system - development of national criterions, indicators and standards for forest certification on the base principles of sustainable forest management
  
  
• Preparation of website «Forests and Forestry in Ukraine»

History of the ICP Forest Program in Ukraine

Since 1994 after signing the Memorandum of Understanding on Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) in Ukraine between the Ministry of Forestry of Ukraine and the Center for International Environmental Programs of the Bowling Green State University (USA), more intensive studies of forest condition have been conducted. The US side provided training and equipment for two Ukrainian field crews.

Since 1995, field activities under the FHM program have been developed in 7 regions of northern and northeastern parts of Ukraine (mainly Chernigiv, Kyiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions). The total of 125 FHM plots have been established in these regions during 5-year period. The design of surveys is organized to provide a 4-year cycle of observations. Each year 25 percent of all plots are visited and assessed. During the 5-year period considerable progress have been made in FHM program implementation in Ukraine. Extensive ecological information on Ukrainian forests had been gathered including data on crown condition, forest regeneration processes, tree damages spreading, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception, understory vegetation diversity, and lichen community structure (Buksha et al., 1999). At the same time, some progress has been achieved in informational maintenance and management of the FHM program in Ukraine (development of software for conversion of initial data into generally accepted formats, completing databases on ecological characteristics of Ukrainian forest plant species, etc.). Both monitoring programs (ICP Forests and FHM) are aimed at better understanding the processes of forest ecosystem dynamics e.g. trends in forest condition. At the same time, objectives ICP Forest Program address human impact on forests (mainly air pollution) more closely while FHM program is developed to obtain information on both natural and human caused processes of changes in forest condition. Both programs have multilevel design. Main results of both programs in Ukraine show clear conformity (Buksha et al., 1999).

The current forest monitoring system in Ukraine combines principles of ICP Forests and FHM programs and enables to gather ecological information on forests with different levels of management intensity. It is evident today that forest monitoring data present necessary information source for decision making in forestry practice and policy, especially taking into account growing anthropogenic load on forest ecosystems and risk of large-scale expansion of forest damage. More work is needed to be done, so we can learn how to extract objective information on forest health condition and current ecosystem processes from primary data sets.

The following research topics should be considered:

• assessment of environmental conditions of forest plants growth;
• evaluation of biomass and bioproductivity of plant communities;
• assessment of tree demography dynamics;
• forest biodiversity assessment;
• identification of physiological state and damage of forests;
• estimation of forest carbon balance;
• forest ecosystem modeling;
• support of forest remote sensing.

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