SIPAFIT

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General System description

System name: Sistema Informativo Provinciale per l’Assestamento Forestale in Trentino

Acronym: SIPAFIT

Brief overview

SIPAFIT is the forest management system used by the Forest Service of Trentino Province articulated in several sub-systems (and relative instruments and tools) which support the different steps of the management decision chain.

Scope of the system

SIPAFIT integrates statistical and sampling methods with computer and technological resources allowing an effective georeferenced description of the main (both dendroauxometric and structural) forest parameters of the managed forest stands. SIPAF allows simulation of different scenarios in terms of forest stratification, inventory strategies and sampling intensity.

System origin

Forest administration of the Province of Trento (North-Eastern Italian Alps, 400,000 ha of forest area, more than 50% of the province total area) has recently changed its inventory system from total census (full callipering, which had been progressively reduced in area, for cost reasons) to sampling methods; besides, the needs for a modern and efficient forest management require more information about an overall “description” of the forest, but at the same time can tolerate less accuracy in timber production estimates. A comprehensive system was developed to support the forest managers, the forest owners and the consultants (professionals who perform forest management plans), in each step of the forest planning. SIPAF and its sub-systems were initially tested on a pilot management plan in 2009, and then had several changes and improvements to tackle the problems met. A total of 12 experts were involved in system design, implementation and testing (5 researchers, 4 foresters from the Forest Service and 3 consultants involved in plan preparation). During this first period of application, a number of meetings and workshops has been realized with all the users of the system. The tools have been operatively used since 2009 by the forest managers of Forest Service in the Trentino Province, and therefore their users have extended from researchers to consultants and to other stakeholders (i.e. managers and technicians of the municipalities which are the public forest owners).

Support for specific issues

SIPAFIT support consultanst in field surveys, allowing an effective georeferenced description of the main (both dendroauxometric and structural) forest parameters, it support forest managers in inventory data control and procesing and it support forest manager in result reporting.

Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type

• Forest planning.
• Territorial planning.

Capability to support decision making phases

• Intelligence: the system use a fully automatic, congruent, progressive and recordable procedure.
• Design: forest planner input data in the inventory phase
• Choice: results give quantitative dendroauxometric parameters
• Monitor: a field test is implemented by the forest managers in the forest surveyed by the consultants.

Related systems

Data and data models

Typical spatial extent of application

The typical spatial extent of application is the forest management plan. The spatial unit for the output depends on what extension data input refer (the forest subjected to the planning process). Definitely we can say that the typical spatial extent of application is the single reale property scale.