Site Resources in the Function of Increasing the Percentage of Forest Cover in Vojvodina
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Abstract
Site resources, as the potential for the increase of the percentage of forest cover in Vojvodina, are analysed. The results of the analysis show that the percentage of forest cover of 6.37% is insufficient for the stability, sustainable development and biodiversity of Vojvodina ecosystems. The percentage of forest cover is by far the lowest in the automorphic ecological zone, in the zone of arable farming in Vojvodina. In this zone, in the ecological sense, the dominant site types are steppes or forest steppes, whose dominant edaphic representative is – chernozem, which occupies 43.6% of the total area of Vojvodina. The site potential analysis in the hydromorphic ecological zone in Vojvodina points to a high percentage of hydromorphic soils, which occupy 44% of the total area, especially in the class of gley soils (humogley, eugley, about 17%). Their use is limited by their physical and hydrological characteristics and it requires higher investment costs, due to the implementation of hydro-melioration measures. Such sites represent a significant space for the increase of the percentage of forest cover in Vojvodina, by the implementation of the biological methods of reclamation, by the establishment of forest plantations, as the most favourable form of sustainable development of such ecosystems. In addition to the above, Vojvodina has significant spaces (about 5%) of insufficiently used sites, in the halomorphic zone. Their dominant representative is solonetz (alkalinised soil), then solod, which were in the past largely covered by common oak - ash and common oak – hornbeam forests. This ecological potential is also a very significant space for the increase of the percentage of forest cover in Vojvodina.
Keywords: ecosystem, site resource, the percentage of forest cover, forest communities