Assessment On Forest Ecosystem Health Of North Valley Forest Farm In Weichang County

Although still controversial, forest ecosystem health as a new research field for current forestry and ecological protection is used to provide scientific basis for forest protection. It also has practical significance to raise the level of forest sustainable management. In this research, the forest stands of North Valley forest farm (Weichang County, Hebei Province) was researched for health assessment. With setting the subcompartment as the basic unit, we built a forest health assessment system and assess the health condition of the forest ecosystem. Finally, the strategy of forest classification management was proposed in order to provide some theory and technical support to enhance the forest ecosystem services function. This paper concludes:(1) Based on qualitative analysis of existing data,16 indexes which were divided into 3 categories were determined as the assessment indexes of forest ecosystems health in the study area.(2) Through the SPSS statistical software, principal component analysis was used to transform the 16 assessment indexes of subcompartments into 8 independent comprehensive indexes; Through the SAS statistical software, cluster analysis was used to divide the subcompartments with the comprehensive indexes into 4 categories.(3) Through calculated on the composite value of forest health, the forest ecosystems health levels of subcompartments in this study area was determined. The amount of the excellent healthy subcompartments which at level I was 215, accounting for 33% of the total; The amount of the healthy subcompartments which at level II was 111, accounting for 17%; The amount of the sub-healthy subcompartments which at level III was 219,45% of the total; The unhealthy subcompartments which at level IV were the least, only 31 plots, accounting for 5%.(4) The principal characters of forests in different health conditions were contrast in different tree species, structure, origin and mixed mode. Finally, according to the characteristics of the stands in different health levels, the main measures of forest health management of this forest management area were proposed.