Forest Management

1. Description

Forest management isone of the mostfundamental disciplines inforestry. It focuses on the process of formulating forest management regimeswithmodern scientific theories.Manyprocedures such asforest inventory and division, planning and decision making, monitoring and evaluationare included forthe final objective of sustainable forest management.

This departmentwas established in 1952.The firstbatch ofgraduatestudents was enrolled in 1959. In 1982,this department wasauthorizedas one of the first disciplinestohaveMaster’s and Doctoral programsin China.It wasapproved asone of thestate-level keydisciplines in 1989. It was listed into “211 Project” and “Changjiang Scholars Program” in 1996 and 1999respectively.In 2004,itparticipatedas a major roleinestablishingthe Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of the Ministry of Education, and became one ofthe keydisciplines of the State Forestry Administrationin 2006. It was listed into“985Innovation Platform”in 2007 and “Double First-Class” in 2017. In 2018, this department built a “Huang Danian” forest management team.

This departmenthas beenplayinganimportantleading role in thefieldof forest management in Chinasince the middle of last century. It obtained great achievements such as the establishment of forest inventory techniques and sustainable management theoryin 1950s, theformulation of forest management plansand the application ofremote sensingin 1960s, the creation ofa national-level forest inventory frameworkin 1970s and theforestry information management systemsin 1980s.In 1990s,It further performed studieson sustainable forest management.At the beginning of21st century,forestry remote sensing andinformation techniquewas added as anewresearch directionwhich contributeda lotto the modernization of forest resource management in China.

The department nowis thecore baseforChineseforest management research, personnel training,as well asacademic exchange. Therefore,itplays an important role inforestry modernization in China.

2. Main researchdirections

1). Sustainable forest management

This researchdirectionfocuses on the theory and approach of forestry leap-forward development, forest dynamics, coupling mechanisms of forest structure and functions, forest silvicultural regimes, evaluation methods for forest health management, multi-purpose forest management systems, community forestry, forestry culture, andForest Stewardship Council (FSC).Among which,forest silvicultural regimesandFSCholdthe leading position inChina.

2). Forest growth and yield modeling

This researchdirectioninvestigates thegrowthprocesses of individual treeandforeststands,as well asforestmanagement effectsthrough existingmodelsor creating new ones to support forest managementdecision-making.Dynamic models include models of individual tree growth, size-class, whole stand, recruitment, mortality, and treatment.Static modelsinclude modelsofsite index, stand density, height-diameter, biomass, tree crown, tree volume, and etc.

3). Forest monitoring and evaluation

This researchdirectionfocuses onthe theoriesand techniques for foreststanddivision, forest inventory, and forest monitoring and evaluation.Specifically, it includes forest sampling techniques, plot designtechniques, and theconstructionof forest monitoring and evaluation indicators. This researchdirectionhas undertakentheNational Key Technology R&D Programandproposedmonitoring and evaluationtechniquesin order toprovide technical support for the"Six NationalKey Forestry Programs".

4). Forestry remote sensing and information techniques

This researchdirectionintegrates remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS),as well asmanagement information system (MIS)intothe application offorest inventory, monitoring, forest management, and forest planning andevaluation. Itfocuses onthe extraction, processing, analysis, interpretationand applicationof forest resourceand ecological environmentinformation,the construction of quantitative remote sensing models, as well asproducingspatial-temporal continuousremote sensing products to support forestsustainablemanagement.

3. Faculty and staff

There are9 fullprofessors,5associate professors and8 assistant professorsin the faculty. The main undergraduate courses of this department includeforest management, forest mensuration, forest sampling techniques, forestry remote sensing, forestresources management, forest planning and decision-making.These are all the first forestry courses opened in China.In the past 5 years, 198 Master students and 54 Ph.D students have graduatedfrom this department.51 government sponsoredprojects with25.13 millionRMB ofresearch fundingand 30 crossing research projects with 5.13 million RMB have been undertaken by this department. 319 research papershave been published,amongwhich 61 are indexed by SCI and EI.Besides, this department also published 5 monographs, obtainedcopyrightof 4pieces of software,received5utility model patents, as well asplaced second for the National Science and Technology Progress Award.