Assessment and diagnosis of potential biodiversity in the chettaba forest (algeria)

In view of the challenges facing forest management today (global warming, increased demand for wood energy), taking account of biodiversity in forests is an immediate necessity. The aim of this work is to estimate the biodiversity of the Chettaba forest by studying these structural elements which provide indirect information on the state of biological diversity and aims to provide the first elements of an answer for the construction of a potential biodiversity index (PBI). This diagnostic tool is based on the scoring of a set of ten factors, seven of which are dependent on recent forest management and three independent of it. A score from 0 to 5 is assigned to each factor. The results show that the potential forest biodiversity is average in the Chettaba massif. The average or rather low values of the criteria in the investigated forest often depend on climate, soil and human actions.