On the Ways of Forest Typology Researches in Siberia in the 1960s–2000s

Abstract

The article presents a brief overview of the works on forest typology and zoning of Siberia conducted at the Forest Typology Laboratory of the Institute of Forest and Timber of the USSR Academy of Sciences, later Sukachev Institute of Forest of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The ecological and phytocoenotic line of research and the regional approach to the creation of diagnostic tables of forest types were adopted as a basis for complex field work carried out jointly with forest management throughout Siberia. The principal features of forest typological work in mountains required the improvement of the system of classification units and mapping of forest cover with determining their diagnostic indicators. The significance of these works for the development of the concept of systemic structure of forest cover and its deep connection with the concept of hierarchical structure of landscape cover through the idea of biogeocenosis and terrestrial ecosystem are meaningful for today. The author speaks in favor of the regional approach to classification of forest types but does not close the way to the creation of a generalized classification of forest ecosystems based on climatic ordination and information modeling. The practical use of ecological-phytocenotic regional classifications of forest cover is substantiated for creating medium-scale maps for various purposes and solving environmental management problems, with the access to ecosystem management of forest territories.