Environmental Settings and Their Changes in the Last Decades

Abstract

The recent forest soil conditions are affected by the historical use of European forests. As a consequence of centuries of use by humans, forests have been subject to severe losses of nutrients. Modern forest management has exerted a considerable influence on the quantity and distribution of organic substances in the soils, the material cycles, deposition loading and the acid-base ratio, as well as the interior forest climate and water regime. The National Forest Soil Inventory provides a tool to describe changes of forest soil conditions over a certain period. An integrated evaluation of the forest conditions and their soils was made possible through correlation with other surveys of crown condition, nutritional status of the trees and vegetation. In addition interpolated climate data, information about geology and substrate classes and profile descriptions with soil-type and humus-type classification are available. Over the past decades, inputs from atmospheric pollution caused by humans have had a significant impact on forests. The onset of the industrial revolution has resulted in a continuous input of N and S in Central Europe which can result in soil acidification, eutrophication, nitrate leaching, cation losses or enhancing greenhouse gas production. Input of fly ash has dropped significantly since lignite combustion has declined considerably by technical efforts. Transnational action to control air pollution has meant a decrease of S depositions in particular. In contrast, little change has been achieved in inputs of N, and atmospheric deposition must continue to be regarded as crucial. The results showed that more than one third of the inventory plots were exposed to critical rates of acidifying depositions and almost all plots to critical rates of eutrophying N prior to the second inventory. The trend still continued that atmospheric N compounds contribute to acidification.