Ecological Zoning and Assessments of Biological Diversity in the Tropics
The Chapter presents FAO programme on eco-floristic zone classification and mapping carried out during 1981-86 in collaboration with the International Institute for Vegetation Mapping (ICIV) at Toulouse in France. The objective was to provide a common sys
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Ecological Zoning and Assessments of Biological Diversity in the Tropics
17.1 The Need for Ecological Zoning Ecological zones classify land/vegetation formations in an area based on similarities and differences of their ecological attributes. Forests belonging to the same zone have comparable structure, phsiognomy, and respond to management treatments in a common manner. The land units too falling in the same zone have comparable physical and chemical properties. A striking similarity in the characteristics of rain forest formations across the continents was presented earlier in Chap. 11. This is true for the other forest formations too. An ecological zone map would enable countries in the same zone to exchange the experiences about forest inventory, growth, and yield. With the above in mind, FAO started a programme during 1981–1986 on classification and mapping of tropical vegetation types on an ecological basis in collaboration with the International Institute for Vegetation Mapping (ICIV) at Toulouse in France. The objective was to provide a common system for classification and mapping of vegetation cover in the tropics, which could be used as a basis for assessment and monitoring of changes in the extent of forests by ecological zone, country, region, and the world. The assumption was that ecological zones constituted the basis for development of forests and such maps will have many uses and promote exchange of scientific and technical know-how related to forest management and forest ecology among countries. The idea was first successfully tested in selected countries of tropical Asia including India, Philippines, and Thailand in cooperation with the national institutions and later extended on an operational basis to all the tropical regions.
K. D. Singh, Capacity Building for the Planning, Assessment, and Systematic Observations of Forests, Environmental Science and Engineering, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-32292-1_17, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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17 Ecological Zoning and Assessments
17.2 The Approach for Ecological Zoning The methodology for the preparation of the map was finalized after a number of consultations between concerned officials of FAO (mainly Dr. K.D. Singh) and ICIV (Dr. F. Blasco) and consultation with countries under the overall direction of Prof. P. Legris. The methodology followed for the preparation of the map consisted of the following steps (Sharma 1986):
17.2.1 The Choice of Parameters For identification and mapping of boundaries of ecofloristic zones (EFZ) the following parameters were used: P = mean annual precipitations in millimeters ms = mean number of dry months in a year calculated according to Gaussen’s method R = average number of rainy days per year T = mean annual temperature tm = mean temperature of coldest month Hm = mean annual air humidity t = annual thermal amplitude
17.2.2 The Classification and Mapping of EFZ The classification and mapping of ecofloristic zones was done as a two-step process taking into account ecological and floristic parameters
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