Phytosociological studies for the conservation planning in natural park (II)

Grades of vegetation naturalness and of land capability, and the conservation planning

Abstract

In the former paper (Bae and lde, 1982), phytosociological method using the grade of vegetation naturalness was discussed for the conservation planning in Takao Quasi-National park as a case to study. Conservation planning in natural park, however, should be established basically under the synthetic analysis including the analysis of both biological elements indicated by vegetation and physical elements which can be integrated into land.
In this paper, grades of vegetation naturalness and of land capability were selected as biological and physical indexes, respectively, and a zoning plan based on the characteristics of natural environment was presented by using such indexes for the conservation of the natural park.
Physical elements are indicated by slope type and degree, which are thought to give a great influence on land uses. Land classification according to the difference of the slopes was carried out in the study area. physical land units were presented and their significance for the land use items were discussed. Results showing the relationship between land units and land use items was summarized into the grades of land capability which contain five different ranks. Land capability grade map was drawn as shown in Fig.1. Every process here was done at the scale of 1: 10, 000.
The land capability grade map was combined with the map of vegetation naturalness grade (Fig.2). Zoning plan (Fig.3) for the conservation of natural park was made from the result of overlaying two grade maps. The grade of vegetation naturalness V and that of land capability V have priority in conservation. Existing conservation plan (Fig.4) was compared with the zoning plan presented here and the way of its improvement was suggested.