Deadwood in Italian forests according to National Forest Inventory results

Abstract

Deadwood in Italian forests according to National Forest Inventory results. Deadwood plays a key role in the functioning and productivity of forest ecosystem and it is an important feature for assessing and monito ring biodiversity. The third Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) has reco gnized the importance of this forest component at the European level. More recently the national forest in ventories have tried to harmonize the procedures including the quantitative and qualitative measurements of deadwood. This paper reports on the methods and results of Italian National Inventory of Forests and Fo rest Carbon Sinks (INFC) and compares the deadwood data with the results of other main European invento ries and some local studies. In Italy the volume of deadwood (logs, snags and stumps) is on average 8.8 m 3 ha -1 .