Abstract
In order to promote the development of forestry and the conservation of forests in suburban areas, the forest use planning system was proposed. The optimal forest allocation plan and the needed forest policies in Kishiwada City in Osaka was investigated as a case study by using the system. In forest use planning, first the planning areas was divided into 278 meshes and the meshes suited for forestry use were selected by the mesh analysis of the land use factors. Secondly, the forest functions of the meshes for forestry use were estimated as numerical values by the principal component analysis of the forest mesh data. The degrees of the forest functions, timber production, water regulation, outdoor recreation and landslide control, were respectively represented by the principal component scores. And the optimal forest site map was determined by selecting the function which has the highest score in each mesh. In order to grasp the problems in carrying out the optimal plan, the questionnaire on forest use was conducted on the forest owners in the planning areas. As a result, the planning area was classified into 3 types on the basis of the forest owners' consciousness for forest use from the questionnaire. Then the needed forest policies for the promotion of forestry and the conservation of forests were respectively proposed.
