0719-B1
Gilson Fernandes da Silva[1], Paulo Márcio de Freitas, Alessandro de Freitas Teixeira and Luiz Alexandre Peternelli
The use of forest resources in Brazil, in most of its regions, is still done in an irrational way. For this reason, important biomass, like the Atlantic Brazilian forest and the Amazonian rain forest suffers frequent threats. The same happens in many other places in the world. Very often this happens because of the lack of adequate technical information about forest management, implying the need for tools that give support in this matter.
The software Mata Nativa was developed to fulfil this need. This is a practical and efficient tool for vegetation analyses and for management planning of natural forests. The main goals of this software are to make the techniques of vegetation characteristics interpretation available, to facilitate the development of forest surveys, and the analysis of decision support for the use of forest resources. Such techniques could be used anywhere in the world where natural forests exist, making natural forest management environmentally adequate, economically viable and socially correct.
Although the exploration of the forest resources in Brazil in a better organized level and in a large scale is relatively recent, it is not difficult to verify the great importance of this sector in the Brazilian scenario. The metallurgical industries that use wood charcoal, for instance, presented in 1997 earnings of US$ 3.7 billions, where about US$ 1.3 billions were originated from exportations, being this sector responsible for 85% of the charcoal consumption in Brazil (Abracave 1998). The wooden furniture sector earned in 1997 US$ 5.6 billions, being practically nonexistent the importation of furniture in Brazil. At this same year this sector was responsible, in Brazil, for 42 thousands direct employment positions (Gorini 1998). The paper and cellulose sector also had expressive earning of about US$ 3.4 billions. It also contributed with US$ 300.00 millions in taxes and paid US$ 1.2 billions in salaries for about 67 thousand employees (Bracelpa 1998). The paper and cellulose exportations at this same year totaled US$ 2 billions. However, in 1997 this sector imported US$ 900 millions, to supply the paper consumption (Bracelpa 1998).
On the other hand, organizing the forest production processes to reach viable economical, environmental and social levels is a hard task. The difficulties get much harder when natural forests are involved, because of the great complexity of these ecosystems. The production planning is an administrative function intended to define plans that might guide the production in order to determine how much, how and where to produce (Nobre, 1999). However, it has been observed in practice, mainly on small and medium size forest companies, empirical management plans, which are frequently based solely on the personal experience of the decision maker.
One of the reasons for this fact is the lack of knowledge of the forest manager about methodologies that are compatible to the great number of variables involved on the natural forests management. Some of these variables are wood stock and forest growing rate determination, economical production alternatives, and some technical alternatives like silvicultural treatment and harvest processes. Additionally, the long period of the production cycle turns the forest management more difficult.
In this context, it was developed the software named Mata Nativa, which has, in this first version, the intention to minimize the difficulties previously stated, so that the registry and use of information related to forest management could be valorized. Usually forest managers do not keep information about the forests they manage. Therefore there is no historical information about this forest that could be of some help on its management in the future.
This work aimed to present to the professionals on forests management or vegetation analysis a tool for saving important records taken along the forest life, so that some aspects of forest management could become easier or more reliable. Also, the software intended to make available, in one place, the most recent techniques of analysis related to forest management and vegetation analysis used in the world, offering to the user a practical, fast and complete tool, allowing a direct and full interpretation of the results.
The Mata Nativa software (figure 1) had its technical aspects developed by a team of Ph.D researchers on forest management from many Brazilian universities: Universidade Federal de Viçosa - UFV, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo - UFES, Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso - UFMT e Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco - UFRPE.
Computer science specialists, with a great experience in the area, developed the computational program. To allow for the maximum user friendly and at the same time to attend the previously cited objectives, the system was divided in three modules: "Data", "Calculation" and "Inventory 100%".
The software was developed for the Windows operational system, using the programming environment Borland Delphi 6 and the database Microsoft Access.
Figure 1 - Mata Nativa main screen.
The software Mata Nativa was recently introduced to the scientific community in Brazil at the Brazilian Congress of Botany in 2002, and now it is available for users in the world. At the cited congress the vegetation analysis techniques used in the software were submitted to appreciation, being approved by the participants. These techniques are being used in many research works in Brazil and in other places in the world. There are many different results offered by the software because of the great number of analysis it can realize.
It will be presented hereafter a detailed description of the modules and their functionalities. Complete information about the results offered by Mata Nativa as well as a demonstration version of the software can be accessed at www.cientec.net <http://www.cientec.net>.
The Data module (Figure 2) is intended to have the registry of the data and the information related to the project. These data will be used in the other two modules. In this module are registered some specific information of each project like the property's local and characteristics, and also the project and its execution responsible information. It will also have information about the species growing in the area, their diameters, heights, information about their natural regeneration, size classes and shape, economical and many other qualitative information that can be used in the posterior analyses of vegetation and potential forest resources use.
To develop this module it was taken into account the organization of the data in a manner appropriate to the most actual techniques on vegetation analysis and forest management in the world. It was also tried to make the data entry as interactive as possible, avoiding errors by using system security mechanisms and potential error checking tools. The system also permits the data exchange with other software like the Microsoft Excel and the Microsoft Word, making it more interactive and flexible.
Figure 2 - Data module survey screen, where No Árv. = number of the tree; Cód. da esp. = code of the specie; Nome Científico = scientific name of the specie; CAP = circumference breast height; DAP = diameter breast height; Alt. Tot. = Total height; Alt. Com. = mercantile height; Com. Cop. = crown length; Vol. = volume; besides other variables that are not visible in the illustration.
This module can be considered as a database containing the forest information at a specific time. As commented before, the registry, the maintenance and the readily access to these information at any time are essentials to keep the forest information collected in order to better understand its behavior and dynamics, allowing for the best management strategies choice.
The Calculation Module uses the data stored on the Data Module to realize some calculations, including the following analyses: Analysis of floristic and phytosociological composition of Species and Families, Analysis of the floristic Diversity, Species Aggregation, Horizontal Phytosociological Structure, Vertical Phytosociological Structure, Natural Regeneration Structure, Volume and Basal Area Tables, Qualitative analyses of characteristics of the stand, Evaluation of Economical Incomes based on the use of the log and of the price of the wood and statistical calculations of the Survey. Figure 3 present the possible calculations the system can execute.
Figure 3 - Calculation Module survey screen showing the analysis of the horizontal Phytosociological structure of a forest, where: Nome Científico = scientific name of the species sampled; ni = number of individuals sampled; Ui = number of sampled; Ab = basal area by species; DA e DR = absolute and relative density, respectively; FA e FR = absolute and relative frequency, respectively; DoA e DoR = absolute and relative dominance, respectively; being excepted the other calculations that are not visible in this figure.
The previously stated analyses consider the most used techniques for the evaluation of the ecological importance of the species used in the world, like those proposed by Finol-Urdaneta (1971); Mueller-Dombois e Ellemberg (1974); Greig-Smith (1983); Pielou (1975) e Pielou (1984); Rosenzweig (1995). Because of the limited space and the great quantity of analysis the software is able to perform, it would not be possible to present here all the methodologies used on the calculations executed by the system. However, the program has a user guide at www.cientec.net that describes all the analyses in detail. Additionally, the user interested on the elaboration of management plans can have the use of important tools like the many possibilities to elaborate yield tables in volume and basal area. Such tools allow for a fast and individual evaluation of how the interesting species for the forest management are distributed within the forest and on different size classes. In summary, in this module, it was joined the efficiency of a computer in making calculations with a huge amount of data, with some processes of analyses allowing for a great number of variables, so that the most diverse scenarios of a forest yield could be evaluated.
In this module all the results are presented in tables and graphics, as illustrated in Figures 4 and 5. Those tables and graphics can also be reorganized accordingly to the user convenience. The figure 4 illustrates an analysis of the diameter structure of a Brazilian natural forest, and the Figure 5 shows a graphical analysis of the diameter distribution of this same forest.
Figure 4 - Representative screen of a diameter structure calculation result, where: Nome científico corresponds to the specie scientific name, the field Variable can assume N (number of trees) ou B (basal area) in the respective diameter classes (10, 20) e Total corresponds to the total number of individuals (N) or Basal Area total (B) of the specie.
Figure 5 - Representative screen of the diameter distribution graphic where the X-axis corresponds to the diameter classes and the Y-axis correspond to the number of trees by hectare.
The results obtained can be exported to other programs like Excel. Also, final reports can be made in the program and configured accordingly to the user interest.
The module Survey 100%, presented in the Figure 6, shows a recent practical used in the management of Brazilian natural forest: the survey of all existent commercial values trees in an annual exploration area. This module tried to follow a proposal by Amaral et al. (1998) that experienced a great practice in surveys (surveys 100%) at the Amazonian region. Following this proposal, it is possible to select the trees with a potential to be cut and avoiding those threatened species and the matrix ones.
This module is directly related to the productive process. It is able to build tables about the yield volume, basal area and the number of trees, so that the user can visualize the many scenarios of the forest use and may decide about the one that would be the most interesting for one proposal. Also, the system allows for the elaboration of exploration maps, and its interaction with geographic information systems.
Figure 6 - Representative screen of the module Survey 100%, where Number and Description mean the number and the description of the unit of production; Area (hectare) corresponds to the area of the respective unit of production.
An example of an exploration map built in the module is presented in Figure 7, according to the forest legislation of some Brazilian region. Based on the data base resources, it is also possible to evaluate the many possibilities of forest exploration, selecting the species with commercial interest from the rest and totaling in terms of the number of trees, volume and basal area and the quantity of wood to be explored. It is still possible to evaluate the density in terms of the number of trees, volume e basal area of the species protected by law, like rare species and matrix and fruit trees.
Figura 7 - Representative screen of the map of stand harvest, where the yellow boxes indicate the spatial distribution of the trees to be cut within the production unity.
The results presented in this module can be transformed on files and exported to other softwares, mainly the spatial localization of the trees, which can be exported and used in geographical systems information softwares, like ArcView e AutoCad.
Finally, it is important to state that this software has contributed to the improvement of the research on natural forests in many regions in Brazil. Therefore it would be potentially useful for other researches anywhere in the world. Its constant use by the professionals in the area guarantees a feedback of its applications and functionalities, allowing a dynamic improvement of the software and of the methodologies being used. This improvement has been made by a group of Brazilian researchers that are working conjointly since the development of this software.
The software Mata Nativa is a powerful tool able to make vegetation analyses and management plans for natural forests. It is divided in three modules: Data Module, a data base with information about the forest over the time; Calculation Module, where a series of calculations are performed, allowing for a vegetation analyses under the ecological or economical point of view as well as for survey statistical analyses; and Survey 100% Module, which is directly related to the production process, allowing for the definition of the species to be cut, species protected by law and rare species that should be preserved, and also suggests scenarios of forest exploration seeking a way to be possible the sustainability of forest management, an also to be environmentally correct and economically viable.
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| [1] Departamento de Engenharia
Rural, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 29500-000, Alegre,
ES, Brazil. Tel: +55 028 3552-1400; Email: [email protected] |