Determinants of marginal area reforestation in the Western Carpathians in the light of consecutive aerial photographs

Abstract

The quantification of reforestation on abandoned land is of high importance due to various environmental and socio-economic consequences. This article aims to determine the role of different factors in the reforestation of abandoned plots in particular mid-forest glades in the higher parts of the Western Carpathians and to detect the feature of plots covered prevalently with forest. The Reforestation Index (RI) was used to detect changes in reforestation. Bayesian multilevel zero-one inflated beta regression was used to determine the predictors of reforestation. Using the series of consecutive aerial photographs enabled the differences between features of plots with a faster rate of reforestation and plots covered entirely with forest to be shown. The most rapid changes in the RI were observed in plots with the lowest level of solar radiation (north exposure). In contrast, the highest RI concerns plots with south exposure, the highest mean slope, and within plots partly forested in the first year of observation. Such an attitude is crucial for areas where the precise date of land abandonment is unknown because it enables a determination of which type of plot was abandoned first.