In forestry practice, phytocoenology plays a vital role as it enables the classification of forests into different plant communities and provides a clear insight into their composition, developmental stages, and various ecological and biological characteristics. Phytocoenology offers essential guidelines to foresters who manage existing forest stands, helping them select appropriate silvicultural techniques and forest structures that most efficiently utilize the natural potential of the habitat. A high-quality map of phytocoenological communities simplifies management and supports the selection of silvicultural techniques as well as monitoring the condition of individual phytocoenological communities. Using remote sensing methods, with a strong emphasis on satellite imagery that provides a large amount of spatiotemporal data, an analysis will be conducted for the purpose of mapping phytocoenological communities. Based on analyses of land Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite image classifications, existing phytocoenological maps of questionable spatial accuracy will be improved, and new maps representing the current state will be created with current accuracy of developed models sitting at 57% accuracy. This work, as part of the ALCAR project, will contribute to the management of Croatian forest phytocoenological communities and raise awareness of possible changes within them.
Radić et al. (Wed,) studied this question.