Six forestry scientific and technological projects being actualized in China were the implementations of ecological construction and security, development of forestry biological technique and fine variety cultivation, protection and utilization of forest biological germplasm resources, development of forestry bio-industry and digital forestry, and construction of forestry innovation ability. Among them, digital forestry was an effective measure to improve the ability of forestry innovation, to realize resources sharing, and to develop sustainable forestry. Spatial database of digital forestry should be constructed according to the criteria and index system of forest sustainable management. Based on analyzing the status and advances of China's digital forestry construction, a database framework of digital forestry towards sustainable forestry development was studied and established preparatorily. The database was divided into four layers as theory layer, system layer, status layer, and parameter layer. It was concluded that during the process of digital forestry platform construction, the relative social, economic, and politic data should be considered and collected, which meant that the database should represent not only the current forestry development, but also the social, politic, and economic situations. Constructing China's digital forestry information platform under full utilization of idea and index system for sustainable forest management was urgent and important.
Based on the spatial information techniques such as RS, GIS, and GPS, the forest landscape patterns in the Helan Mountain, western China, were studied. The Landsat 5 TM data were used to classify the forest landscapes through RS digital cartography, and then, the landscape characteristics and landscape pattern were analyzed quantificationally. Furthermore, through spatial data collection and spatial analysis of the main disturbances in this area, the cause of landscape formation was studied. The results showed that the total 1177 forest landscape patches could be classified into 21 landscape types, and the forest landscape in the Helan Mountain was island pattern, which was encircled by deserta as matrix. The values of landscape diversity index and landscape fragmentation index were 2.61 and 0.43, respectively. In this area, the landscape pattern was clearly formed and continuously changed in response to geological processes, climate, activities of organisms, forest fire, desertification, human activities and so on. This landscape pattern had an obviously negative effect on the stability and ecosystem services of forests. So, scientific landscape planning and protection should be adopted to improve the sustainability of forest management in this area.
DENG Hongbing WANG Yingming ZHANG Qiaoxian YAN Yan
