The Use of the Forest Status Quality Indicator in Planning Policies for Biodiversity Conservation. Ten Case Studies on Forest Plantations in North Italy

This paper describes a new application of the previous defined Forest Status Quality Indicator in planning policies of forest conservation. Starting from previous analysis and conclusions about the importance of the forest plantations for ecological restoration, new case studies confirm the possibility of using this indicator to efficiently guide policy makers and planners to choose the best position and extensions of forest types/patches for restoration and connectivity. By considering the present situation of the forest quality, we propose a method to compute a predicted value of the indicator by considering, in addition, the contribution of plantations, once they will be naturalized in the territory under consideration. The new, predicted value of the Forest Status Quality Indicator is a function of the ecological components, which are at the basis of the naturalistic approach of its definition. The results are shown on ten important case studies of plantations in the West Po Plain (North Italy). The method of prediction can be used to measure the impact of plantations on the quality of the forests and to define under which hypothesis they can play an important role in biodiversity conservation.