Rania Hasan ^(1)*, Mahmoud Ali ⁽¹⁾, Ali Ramadan ⁽²⁾ and Ola Merhej ⁽³⁾

(1). Department of Forestry and Environment, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Tishreen University, Syria.

(2). Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Tishreen University, Syria.

(3). General Authority for Remote Sensing, Lattakia, Syria.

(* Corresponding author: Eng. Rania Hasan, e-mail: raniahsn1990@gmail.com).

Received: 4/04/2023           Accepted:7/06/2023

Abstract: 

The aim of this research is to study the distribution and spread of the Lebanese cedar trees, Cedrus libani A.Rich, in the Cedar – Fir protected area in the Slenfeh region in Syria, after the reserve suffered from a fire in 2020, which negatively affected the area of cedar natural spread. The squares method was adopted to count the number of trees. 10 squares were chosen on the eastern part and 3 squares on the southern part, where the spread of the cedar is concentrated. The numbers of all the trees spreading in the studied samples were counted, and the plant density in hectares and the relative abundance of the cedar and the associated forest species were calculated. The results showed that the relative abundance and density of Lebanese cedar per hectare on the southern part was the highest compared to the other species, as the relative abundance was 20.2% and the density was 883.33 trees per hectare. On the other hand, only Juniperus drupacea was superior in relative abundance and density to the Lebanese cedar on the eastern part of the reserve, as the density of the cedar reached 478.57 trees per hectare compared to 267.86 trees per hectare for the Lebanese cedar, with a relative abundance of 9.4%.

Keywords: Cedrus libani, Cedar – Fir protected area, Slenfeh, Syria, plant density per hectare, relative abundance.

Full paper in Arabic: pdf