L'apport d'un inventaire forestier par échantillonnage à la gestion de la forêt de Soignes

To keep up with the increase and diversity of constraints to which our forests are subjected, the forest managers need to have at their disposal a panel of information more and more complete, able to offer objective guidance in making decisions. It is within this context that the Institut Bruxellois de Gestion de l’Environnement (IBGE), an institute responsible for local environmental management, chose to equip itself with a permanent inventory of forestry samples covering amongst it the 1657 ha of the Soignes forest near Brussels.
This inventory was conceived and implemented in collaboration with the Gembloux Agricultural University. It is made up of a network of observation points distributed at regular intervals throughout the forest around Brussels. No less than 400 places (circular surfaces) of a few hundred square meters each are distributed within the forest and will be subject to precise and measurable observations at regular intervals (every 4 to 8 years). These measures not only record healthy trees, but also dead trees and the biodiversity they bring, also herbaceous plants, soil conditions, topography, animal wildlife, ... Thanks to a digital database specifically devised for this inventory, the information gathered will be treated and extrapolated to offer forest wide resource data.
The continuing acquisition of this detailed information together with its spatial references ensure the completeness of the inventory and will enable an analytical study of its evolution of the different parameters studied. The inventory put in place here will constitute an important source of information to those who take part in the management and more widely to the improvements of our knowledge of the forestry heritage of the region Brussels Capital.