Simon,

I agree, it would be great to have standards. There are some in British
Columbia, Canada, I believe. I'll try to dig them up - or maybe someone
over there has them handy?

And I would guess, that the next step, after standardizing, would be to
quantify CDW requirements for ecosystems. I mean, what's the minimum amount
CWD needed in a healthy ecosystem? - And I would include snags.

Cheers
Daniel


At 13:51 28.05.2002 +1000, you wrote:
>Dear deadwoodologists
>
>I'm sometimes asked by colleagues what exactly I mean by coarse woody
>debris, especially by people looking to pick holes in estimates of CWD
>volumes. I have to explain that what I mean by CWD may not correspond
>with what others mean, and hence our figures are not always entirely
>comparable. With all the upsurge of interest in dead wood (e.g. for
>carbon accounting and for biodiversity), isn't it about time we
>standardised on our definitions? I appreciate that we all put the data to
>different uses, but are our uses so different that we can't standardise?
>
>Maybe this is old news, and standards may have been developed and
>adopted. But if so, what are they, and where are they laid down? Two key
>discrepancies come to mind: whether or not CWD includes standing dead
>wood; and what is the minimum diameter below which CWD becomes fine woody
>debris? Some people use 7.5 cm, others 10 cm, others 15 cm; others use
>inches which almost (but don't quite) correspond to these cm
>definitions. Likewise ha or acres. Personally, I have tended to exclude
>standing dead wood and have specified a minimum diameter of 7.5 cm.
>However, the lower the minimum diameter, the more work involved in working
>out volumes per unit area, and the law of diminishing returns applies
>since smaller diameter material generally contributes little to overall
>volumes.
>
>If readers feel that we still lack standards and that it would be worth
>developing some, I'd be pleased to see some discussion through this
>list. If support was strong enough, we could perhaps consider setting up
>a web-page that allows people to vote on alternatives, and could invite
>members of related lists (e.g. forestry, carbon accounting, bryology,
>entomology, mycology) to vote too.
>
>Any comments?
>
>Simon Grove
>
>
>`'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,
>
>Dr Simon J Grove, Biology and Conservation Branch,
>Division of Forest Research and Development
>Forestry Tasmania, GPO Box 207, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
>Tel. 61 3 6233 8141. Fax 61 3 6233 8292.
>Email: simon.grove@....
>Web address: http://forestrytas.com.au/
>
>
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*******************************************************************
Daniel Koechli
Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL - Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Abteilung Strategien Waldentwicklung
Zuercherstr. 111
CH-8903 Birmensdorf
Switzerland

Phone +41 1 739 25 29
daniel.koechli@...
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