The causes of recent episodes of forest decline in Canada have not yet been fully determined. Current explanations include the effects of acid depositon as well as natural causes such as climate stress. This thesis takes a geographic approach and undertakes risk-response comparisons in order to examined the problem of maple forest dieback in the Appalachian region of Quebec. Geographic Information Systems are used to map a series of forest decline risk factors relating to soil characteristics and topography. The individual risk factors, as well as models comprising weighted combinations of risk factors, are compared with actual defoliation patterns. Forest defoliation is determined using areal survey data and satellite imagery. Although statistically significant associations were obtained between defoliation patterns and several risk factors, the amount of association was not strong enough to conclude that these factors are dominant causes of forest decline.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23250 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Wallace, Ian, 1960- |
| Contributors | Meredith, Thom (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Geography.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001473047, proquestno: MM07966, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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