Sampling Theory For Forest Inventory

Forest inventory may be defined as the technique of collecting, evaluating and presenting specified information on forest areas. Because of the generally la~ge extent of forest areas, data are usually collected by sampling, i.e. by making observations on only part of the area of interest. As there are many different sampling methods (e.g. Appendix 1), a choice must first be made as to which method suits the given field and financial circumstances best. On completion of the sampling procedure, the numerous data collected have next to be condensed to manageable representative quantities. Finally, from these quantities, inferences about the situation in the entire forest area are made, preferably accompanied by an indication of their reliability. This book is intended for students who want to know the whepefope of the sampling techniques used in forest inventory. The danger of lack of knowledge is a blind following of instructions and copying statistical formulae, or, even worse, feeding data into a computer loaded with a program that is said to print out the required information. In serious persons, such approaches may leave a feeling of dissatisfaction or even of professional incompetence, be cause of inability to direct or evaluate the procedure critically. If a student tries to improve his or her situation, he/she will find that the few existing forest inventory textbooks, though some with merit, either use confusing statistical symbols or do not adequately cover theoretical principles.

Sound forest management planning requires cost-efficient approaches to optimally utilize given resources. Emphasizing the mathematical and statistical features of forest sampling to assess classical dendrometrical quantities, Sampling Techniques for Forest Inventories presents the statistical concepts and tools needed to conduct a modern for

Designed to aid readers in gathering the most reliable quantitative information on forests for the least cost. Thoroughly explains the interrelationships between sampling strategies; discusses forestry techniques of efficient tactics; examines new developments in statistics having immediate applications in forestry and describes related developments that should have relevance in the future. Includes practical methods for dealing with forest data such as tree number, height, diameter and marketable wood. Also contains problem sets.

This book has been developed as a forest inventory textbook for students and could also serve as a handbook for practical foresters. We have set out to keep the mathematics in the book at a fairly non-technical level, and therefore, although we deal with many issues that include highly sophisticated methodology, we try to present first and foremost the ideas behind them. For foresters who need more details, references are given to more advanced scientific papers and books in the fields of statistics and biometrics. Forest inventory books deal mostly with sampling and measurement issues, as found here in section I, but since forest inventories in many countries involve much more than this, we have also included material on forestry applications. Most applications nowadays involve remote sensing technology of some sort, so that section II deals mostly with the use of remote sensing material for this purpose. Section III deals with national inventories carried out in different parts of world, and section IV is an attempt to outline some future possibilities of forest inventory methodologies. The editors, Annika Kangas Professor of Forest Mensuration and Management, Department of Forest Resource Management, University of Helsinki. Matti Maltamo Professor of Forest Mensuration, Faculty of Forestry, University of Joensuu. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Clearly explains the sampling methods associated with the inventory of forest resources. It avoids extensive coverage of theoretical statistics and mathematics in favor of thorough coverage of forest inventory topics for the practitioner.

Forest mensuration – the science of measurement applied to forest vegetation and forest products – holds value for basic ecology as well as sustainable forest management. As demands on the world’s forests have grown, scientists and professionals are increasingly called on to quantify forest composition, structure, and the goods and services forests provide. Grounded in geometry, sampling theory, and ecology as well as practical field experience, forest mensuration offers opportunities for creative problem solving and critical thinking. This fifth edition of the classic volume, Forest Mensuration, includes coverage of traditional and emerging topics, with attention to SI and Imperial units throughout. The book has been reorganised from the fourth edition to better integrate non-timber and ecological aspects of forest mensuration at the tree, stand, forest, and landscape scales throughout. The new edition includes new chapters that specifically address the integration of remotely sensed data in the forest inventory process, and inventory methods for dead and downed wood. One unifying theme, not only for traditional forestry but for the non-timber inventory and for remote sensing, is the use of covariates to make sampling more efficient and spatially explicit. This is introduced in the introductory chapter on statistics and the chapter on sampling designs has been restructured to highlight this approach and lay the foundation for further learning. New examples will be developed throughout the textbook with an emphasis on current issues and international practice. Students in applied forestry programs will find ample coverage of forest products and timber inventory, while expanded material on biodiversity, biomass and carbon inventory, downed dead wood, and the growing role of remote sensing in forest assessment will be valuable to a broader audience in applied ecology.

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service is in the process of moving from a system of quasi-independent, regional, periodic inventories to an enhanced program featuring greater national consistency, a complete and annual sample of each State, new reporting requirements, and integration with the ground sampling component of the Forest Health Monitoring Program. This documentation presents an overview of the conceptual design, describes the sampling frame and plot configuration, presents the estimators that form the basis of FIA's National Information Management System (NIMS), and shows how annual data are combined for analysis. It also references a number of Web-based supplementary documents that provide greater detail about some of the more obscure aspects of the sampling and estimation system, as well as examples of calculations for most of the common estimators produced by FIA.