GIS based analysis of forest management effects on vegetation changes

Study of forest vegetation changes have long been recognized to be an indispensable part of inventory in forest ecosystems. Nowadays, study of multidimensional aspects of vegetation turned to a possible and easy task by employing GIS technology. Attempts were made by applying GIS to quantify the influence of forest management activities on vegetation changes. Two vegetation maps of the study area, with thirty-year interval, were crossclassified to reveal their temporal changes during this period. The resulted image was then integrated with age classes and forest management stages. Pairwise comparison technique was used and association\dissociation was obtained between those changes with both forest management stages and age classes. It was found that some of the transitional stages of forest management and age classes have high influence on vegetation changes in the herb layer, specially both in beech and oak hornbeam stands. This study also demonstrate the capability of GIS to perform such analyses which were difficult task otherwise.