Il bosco di Mestre: possibili scenari di gestione selvicolturale di un bosco di pianura

Pignatti thinks that Querco-Carpinetum boreoitalicum (1953) is the forest climax association of Pianura Padana. Nowadays these forests, located on a few patches in Veneto, that totally cover about 60 hectares, show serious problems in stands structure and functions. They are very important for the nature conservation even if they are fragmented in small stands. Foresters manage them as an open museum, adopting particular forestry tecnique to preserve and maintain the overstorey vegetation, even through new plantations near the ancient woods. By 1988, thanks to the CAP's strategy of set-aside, hundreds hectares of agricultural land were converted to forest with the aim to restore the ancient plain forest. These new forests have a lot of problems caused by errors in the projecting phase and by cultural lacks so they need for a model for the management of the stands. The relationship between age and the most important tree variables (dbh, height, crown size, tree growth, etc.), natural regeneration and herbs vegetation, were studied by a chronosequence approach over 13 forest sites. These relationships were consequently used to develop a predictive stand growth model for the Mestre's Wood that, with its 1220 hectares, will became one of the largest periurban forest in the EU.