AAIR Project No PL 94-2392

Silvicultural strategies for predicting damage to forests from wind, fire and snow.

AAIR Meeting Minutes from Finland

Present at Meeting

Joensuu
Aberdeen
CNIG
FA NRS
MLURI
Florestal
Umea
Galway
Visiting Scientists

Activities of the Meeting

The meeting comprised the following activities (not in chron. order)

  1. Welcome to Finland and statement of the objectives of the meeting by the coordinator, Seppo Kellomaki. These were to discuss recent progress, sort out administrative and technical matters arising, plan the coming 6 months work programme, and view the work of the Joensuu team. he also passed on the views of Dr Arabatzis who was disappointed not to be able to attend in person but was gernerally pleased wiht the progress of the project to date.
  2. Two administrative sessions in Tampere to review organisational task work.
  3. A technical session in Tampere to review results from specific task work.
  4. A visit to the faculty of Forestry, University of Joensuu to view computer models demonstrated by Heli Peltola, Ari Talkkari and Seppo Kellomaki.
  5. A visit to the Mekrijarvi field station for demonstrations of tree swaying measurements, tree-pulling, climate change studie and a forest equivalent to the Task 7 test area.

ACTION POINTS EMERGING FROM THE FINLAND MEETING

The action points emerging from these discussions are summarised as general and by Task below, with a note of the participants required to take action. Where the qaction is to be taken by a group I have just listed the participant number; where the action is for an individual I have named them. I have numbered action points sequentially from those of the Lisbon meeting so that they can be referred to easily in correspondence or at subsequent meetings (e.g. as Action Point 18 of Tampere meeting).

TASK1

Sub task 1.1

The report for Task 1 had been ciculated but it was now agreed that there was merit in keeping this document as a dynamic plan throughout the life of the project. Revision of it would then become a standard item at future progress meetings. After the next set of revisions a ring-bound opy would be produced to facilitate ammendments. Participants should check through the existing copy and let David Miller know of corrections required e.g. software changes, data availability etc.

ACTION 17 All participants to provide D MILLER with comments (including nil return) by 15.9.95.

ACTION 18 D MILLER to produce ring bound copy by March meeting.

TASK 2

General

Participant 2 will collate methodologies, protocols etc by 12 months

ACTION 19 PARTICIPANTS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 to forward field methodologies by 1.1.96.

ACTION 20 PARTICIPANT 2 to circulate collated protocol by 1.3.95.

Sub task 2.1

Further field work was to be undertaken and sites would be required in 1996. Potential additional collaboration was identified with Oxford University (Dr Colin Wood) to allow field measurements to be compared against a mechanical model of breakage/overturning.

ACTION 21 B GARDINER to provide R DUNHAM with copy of Oxford Model

Sub task 2.3

Participant 4 has created a database of existing data on static tree pulling and dynamic tree sway. Data will now be provided by Participants 01 and 08.

ACTION 22 PARTICIPANTS 01 and 08 to provide data to B GARDINER by 1.1.96

TASK 3

Progress was occurring but no specific action points were noted.

TASK 4

Progress was occurring but no specific action points were noted.

TASK 5

Sub task 5.1

Participant 07 will continue to seek additional funding to permit involvement of Mikaell Ottoson. In the meantime he will define the range of temperature/windspeed believed to be of significance in snow damage events.

ACTION 23 E VALINGER/M OTTOSON to define climatic features by 1.12.95.

Sub task 5.2

There was a need to summarise data being compiled and MLURI would consider the need to ciculate a questionnaire on metadata.

ACTION 24 PARTICIPANT 05 to circulate appropriate form by 15.3.96.

TASK 6

No specific action. Marianne Broadgate had been appointed to MLURI to work on this task with effect from 1.9.95.

TASK 7

No specific action.

TASK 8

WWW pages had been established as had the e-mail server. Any problems shoud be referred to Alistair Law at MLURI.

Other Action Points (not task specific)

ROLE OF TASK LEADERS

It was agreed that for future progress reports the Task Leaders would be responsible for producing a brief task report for incorporation into the consolidated report by the coordinator; this would summarise expected and completed progress and provide an explanation by sub-task. For this to be possible each Participant must forward the relevant subtask report to the task leader as well as send their participants report direct to the coordinator. The coordinator would consider a template for task reports and issue a timetable for all contributions for the next report; note that the 12 month report will require a cost statement.

ACTION 25 S KELLOMAKI to identify timetable and contents for 12 month report by 30.9.95.

ACTION 26 ALL PARTICIPANTS to provide task leaders with necessary information at time of next report.

ENHANCEMENT OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN GROUPS

There were opportunities for exchange of students and scientists between institutes particularly as a number e.g. Joensuu were in areas categorised as Less-Developed and therefore favoured mobility allowances from the EU.

ACTION 27 ALL PARTICIPANTS to consider opportunities for such exchanges.

ADVERTISING THE GROUP

WWW
This was established and would be extended over the next few months.
ACRONYM
After much debate, largely in the context of the leaflet (see below) it was agreed to call the group the WSFS group - standing for the Wind, Snow, Fire and Silviculture group.
LEAFLET
We discussed the need for a leaflet and the format, contents and the means of production. It was agreed to produce a folded A4 flyer in two colours that summarises the tasks and those involved. The initial text would be in English - if individual participants subsequently wished to translate it into another language this would be possible and a further print run organised.
ACTION 28 ALL PARTICIPANTS to look for appropriate linework and task descriptions to send to D MILLER by 30.9.95.

ACTION 29 D MILLER to get mock-ups of two logos (map or triangle) proposed and circulate for comment by 30.10.95.

ACTION 30 D MILLER and C QUINE to produce revised text by 30.10.95 and organise print run by 31.12.95.

After the initial leaflet there would be scope for a summary of results in the form of A4 or similar booklet (e.g. Joensuu Faculty of Forestry Research Notes). The would be discussed at the March 1996 Meeting.

IUFRO WIND MEETING

A meeting of the IUFRO working group S1.03.04 in Tampere had agreed that a follow up to the Edinburgh conference (proceedings just published) be held in summer 1998 in Joensuu, Finland. This would provide an ideal forum to report progress of this project to an international audience - and indeed we hoped it might attract further EU support. Further details would now be defined and the meeting advertised in literature. It would be helpful if the presence of the IUFRO subject group could be advertised in our world wide web page.

ACTION 31 C QUINE to produce text for WWW page by 30.9.95 and H PELTOLA to start planning conference in conjection with others.

NEXT MEETING

It was agreed that the next meeting would be held in Britain with arrival on 13.3.96 and departure on 17.3.96 - the programme would include administrative meeting, ample time for technical discussion, field visits. C Quine would identify arrangements but an early reply from participants on numbers likely to attend would be appreciated. It was agreed that the coordinator would invite Dr Arabazis from Brussels.

ACTION 32 ALL PARTICIPANTS to inform C QUINE of likelihood of attendance by 30.9.95.

ACTION 33 S KELLOMAKI to invite Dr Arabatzis.

Minutes prepared by C P Quine Wed Aug 16 1995

Alistair Law - a.law@macaulay.ac.uk

Last modified: Thu Dec 14 16:25:54 1995