Identification of areas for forestry at the regional planning level in Iceland: Examination of a land-use assessment method

摘要

The subject of this research project is the development and initial test of one potential land-use assessment method for Iceland, intended to aid the selection of areas for a given land-use (forestry in this instance) based on the natural attributes of land only. The method evaluates land for a given land-use and is designed for the regional planning level in Iceland and intended to be relatively quick and easy to apply. The main features of the method are the use of expert evaluation, the division of natural variables or factors into categories, and the use of a common grade scale for all land-uses. The method consists of six steps: (1) creation of cells, (2) mapping of current land-use and natural factors, (3) cell grading (based on expert assigned grades), (4) weight derivation (by experts) and calculation of weighted grades, (5) calculation of overall grades by summing weighted grades, and (6) comparison of grades for different land-uses and comparison to current land-use. The overall result is a map showing the cells most suitable for forestry. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).