RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN NOVEL FOREST DAMAGE AND THE ECOLOGICAL COMPLEX OF CLIMATE AND SOIL FACTORS IN ALL SPRUCE STANDS OF A LARGE FOREST AREA IN THURINGIA

Analysis of the relations of the actual state of damage (1993) of abou t 4500 spruce stands to the actual complex of the quantified and stand -specific factors Nas facilitated by whole-area false-coloured aerial photographs, scale 1 : 5000, of large entire spruce forest highland re gions with ''novel'' forest damage. The chronical stress imposed by ai r pollution, key factor ozone, is - for the time being hypothetically - derived as a function of the altitude above sea level from the measu red values obtained from neighbouring measuring stations. Highly signi ficant, really functional relationships of damage to the velocity of f low of the pollutant-clean air mixture, the so-called ''air-pollutant flux'', represented by the factors of altitude above sea level, age of stand and reduced stand density, are proved by the analysis. The mode ls of response so formalized in order to quantity the actual state of damage led to the first hypothetical models of medium-term damage prog nosis, based upon the presence of the tree species spruce which is dim inishing by area as a function of the increasing duration of air pollu tion stress; the reduction in stand density due to the damage follows the cumulative function of the probability integral after Gauss, thus a rend of biological relevance. The models of response rely on key fac tors relevant to practice and offer binding theorems for silvicultural treatment of the present-day large-area spruce forest.