Towards an Advanced Inventorying and Monitoring System for the Swiss Forest
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12 Research Unit Economics and Social Sciences
Tessa Hegetschweiler, Tobias Schulz
Position of the RU / Programme / Centre / Initiative at WSL with respect to Swiss AIM and its starting vision.
Yes, we are interested! AIM provides the possibility to combine forest visitor monitoring with data from forest plots and will help us build up forest visitor monitoring in Switzerland.
It also creates an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness forest management interventions and of forest policy instruments motivating these.
Key scientific questions: current and foreseen for the medium (5–10 yrs) and long term (>10–50 yrs).
• What are the visitor frequencies for these plots and which factors determine visitor frequencies? (medium term)
• In the long term, the monitoring of forest visitors, their frequencies, needs,
preferences, behaviour and socio-demographics can enable us to detect trends and changes.
• Which goals and respective forest management strategy/interventions are pursued in the region and have been implemented on the plot for which reason. In the long- term, collecting reliable information about forest management interventions and their underlying motivation may allow an evaluation not only of forest management interventions but also of forest policy.
Scales of interest (spatial, temporal, ecological, environmental) and/or statistical inference.
• Local level
o Results can inform forest and visitor management at specific sites.
• Cantonal level
o The results may allow a comparison between different forest types across cantons.
• Switzerland:
o Patterns and trends concerning forest visitor numbers, needs, behaviour, etc.
valid for all urban/recreational forests.
o The results may allow a comparison between different forest types for entire Switzerland.
Statistical requirements (if any) in terms of precision of status and change estimates.
NA
This question cannot be answered at this point.
WSL Berichte, Issue 106, 2021 46
Related data needs: attributes to be measured, plots, instruments, trees, destructive sampling.
• Visitor counts using automatic counters, e.g. continuously over one year, periodic updates.
• Forest visitor questionnaire survey.
• Forester/forest owner/expert questionnaire survey.
• Cantonal forest agencies questionnaire survey / interviews.
• Federal office questionnaire survey / interviews.
Support and resource availability.
• Expertise and project leadership by permanently employed WISOZ members.
• Human resources needed for carrying out specific projects.
• Financial resources needed for equipment and surveys.
