On sampling collection procedure effectiveness for forest soil characterization

One of the most important measures to prevent wild forest fires is the use of prescribed and controlled burning actions as it reduce the fuel mass availability. The impact of these management activities on soil physical and chemical properties varies according to the type of both soil and vegetation. Decisions in forest management plans are often based on the results obtained from soil-monitoring campaigns. Those campaigns are often man-labor intensive and expensive. In this paper we have successfully used the multivariate statistical technique Robust Principal Analysis Compounds (ROBPCA) to investigate on the sampling procedure effectiveness for two different methodologies, in order to reflect on the possibility of simplifying and reduce the sampling collection process and its auxiliary laboratory analysis work towards a cost-effective and competent forest soil characterization.