Quantitative assessment of the relative importance and cooperative effects of factors influencing forest instability.

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made in recognising the factors that lead to wind blow in forest plantations. These may be classified into three broad groups, (a) those relating to characteristics of individual tree species, (b) those relating to composition and structure of forest plantations, and (c) environmental variables. The first two groups are largely the concern of the botanist and the silviculturist and are not considered in this paper. Environmental variables shown to be significant to wind blow processes include bedrock, soil-type, slope, altitude, exposure, and aspect. This paper assesses the relative importance of these variables and explores their co-operative effects on forest instability.