Vorschlag zur anpassung der forstlichen wuchsregionengliederung Deutschlands an das nutzungspotenzial der böden

The map of GAUER and ALDINGER from the year 2005 presents for the first time a GIS-dataset, which provides a consistant classification of landscapes from a forest ecological view for whole Germany. There have been different attempts for an aggregation of the 82 forest growth regions in order to facilitate the analysis for pedological monitorings, like BZE II, surveys and comparisons for the whole of Germany. We developed a modified classification of regions based on the system of WOLFF and BARITZ, however focussed on criteria of nutrient sustainability. Therefore the units of the soil overwiew map 1:1.000.000 from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, BGR) were classified into four classes with respect to their productivity based on nutrient availability. The considered elements are phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium and indirectly carbon. Important is that intensified harvesting by using branches and leaves respectivly needles exploits more nutrients than cutting stem wood. Subsequently the classified soil units were intersected with a forest layer from CORINE-dataset, available from the European Environment Agency (EEA). The next step was the aggregation from forest ecological domains (Wuchsbezirke) to forest ecological regions. None of the forest ecological domains or subdomains (Teilwuchsbezirke) have been altered in their geometry. This guaranteed, that the local expertise from forest site ecologists was totaly adopted. Only in cases where the forest ecological regions from WOLFF and BARITZ are aggregating soils with very different nutrient potential, the up to now classification was modified. To obtain more summarized units the 18 forest ecological regions were also aggregated to 9 forest ecological landscapes (Wuchslandschaften). A Chi-squared test indicates for the modified forest ecological regions as well as for the forest ecological landscapes a better differentiation compared with the forest ecological regions after WOLFF and BARITZ respectivly the forest ecological landscapes after GAUER and ALDINGER. Only 2 forest ecological regions are still containing a very heterogenous soil classification, whereas within the former classifications there were 7 forest ecological regions summarizing very different soil areas.