Assessment of Site Potential from Vegetation and Landscape

Résumé du livre

Sample sites are ideally selected by stratifying the patterns of air photos and locating sites exactly within them, so that results can be extrapolated by mapping. This should result in a vegetation and land type map which reflects potential productivity and thus stability (sustained yield). Selected sites in North Queensland are used as a model for specific explanation of the method and for prediction of the outcome of various forms of exploitation. Indicator species from regrowth on already degraded lands are used to suggest possibilities for returning such lands to more productive use. An illustration of this kind of classification which was recently carried out in a mountain watershed in western Venezuela is provided. It shows the cheapness and effectiveness of such assessment and how decisions about changed land use can be made for eight different kinds of use. [Authors' abstract].