Recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy
of the European Union have increased the interest in
establishing forest tree plantations on agricultural
land. Accurate and reliable evaluation of site suitability
with respect to selected species and availability of
potential timber yield information is vital for the
assessment of afforestation projects. This information
may be provided by models that estimate the site
quality for various tree species as a function of climatic,
soil and topographic characteristics. Indeed,
assessment of site potential in terms of wood productivity
is one of the most important aspects of land
management from forestry point of view (Monserud
et al., 1990; Carmean, 1996; Tyler et al., 1996).