Indicators for condition of forest and environment

 

View the condition of forest and environment chapter of 'UK Indicators of Sustainable Forestry', as published in October 2002.

Any recent developments, and links to additional information, are shown below.

C1. Air pollutants

• For more information on the International Co-operative programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests, see the ICP forests website.
  
• The number of Level II sites in GB, for monitoring air quality and pollutant deposition and their effects on forest ecosystem structure and growth, has now been increased to 20. They now cover the same 5 species as the Level I sites (see indicator C2). A report on Ten Years of Intensive Environmental Monitoring in British Forests (FC Information Note 88) was published in August 2007
  

C2. Soil chemistry

C3. Water quality

C4. Surface water acidification

C5. Water yield and stream flows

C6. River habitat quality

C7. Pollution incidents

C8. Crown density

• Forest Condition Survey results for 2000 to 2005 are now available. These web pages include the reported results for each year and maps showing the geographical variation in crown density for each of the assessed species.

• The annual results for earlier years are also available in Information Notes on Forest Condition, including 2001 (published in December 2002), 2002 (published in September 2003), 2003 (published October 2004), and 2004 (published October 2005).

C9. Damage by living organisms

• The published graphs of insect damage and damage by fungi were based on Forest Condition Survey results; updated results to 2003 are available here. 
  
  
• In the table for mammal damage (bark stripping and browsing) the ranges for perecentage of trees are shown incorrectly. In both cases, the ranges should be <20%, 20-50% and >50%.
  

C10. Other damage (wind and fire)

• Updated figures for fire damage on FC and FS land are in Forestry Statistics 2004 table 4.6. This table was dropped for Forestry Statistics 2005.
  
  
• At present, few woodland fires are recorded by fire services among primary fires on grassland, crops, woods etc. Most woodland fires are recorded by fire services in a wider category of secondary fires on grassland, heath land etc, where they are not separately identified. This only covers fires attended by the fire services. The possibility of enhanced recording from 2008 is being investigated.