Unprecedented pluri-decennial increase in the growing stock of French forests is persistent and dominated by private broadleaved forests

Table 1 Changes in forest area, growing stock, and growing stock density across ownership (1976 to 2010) and ownership × composition (1987–1994) categories

¹OPF: other public forests essentially belonging to municipalities and subjected to a legal management plan, ²B/C: broadleaves/conifers. ³The study period was restricted to 1987–1994 for the ownership × composition analysis (i.e. species composition different than “All”, see “Materials and methods”). Absolute and relative changes are therefore not comparable across ownership and ownership × composition categories (dashed line) and relative annualized changes were therefore indicated to ease comparisons across categories. The R ratio measures the contribution of each ownership or ownership × composition category to the total change relative to its relative importance (see section 2.3). R ratios show consistent correlations with annual rates of changes. ⁴Share of the total expansion and R ratio apply to extensive variables (in the physical sense of the term) and are meaningless for growing stock density

ISSN: 1297-966X