Forest Inventory and Monitoring Environmetrics

Rocky Mountain Research Station 2001 Researech Attainment Report (2001)

October 2001

The Rocky Mountain Research Station develops scientific information and technology to improve management, protection, and use of the forests and rangelands. Research is designed to meet the needs of Forest managers, Federal and State Agencies, public and private organizations, academic institutions, industry, and individuals.

Studies accelerate solutions to problems involving ecosystems, range, forests, water, recreation, fire, resource inventory, land reclamation, community sustainability, forest engineering technology, multiple use economics, wildlife and fish habitat, and forest insects and diseases. This report reflects the 2001 accomplishments of the Rocky Mountain Research Station in these areas of research.

Research locations are: Flagstaff, Arizona; Fort Collins, Colorado; Boise and Moscow, Idaho; Bozeman and Missoula, Montana; Lincoln, Nebraska; Reno, Nevada; Albuquerque, New Mexico, Rapid City, South Dakota; Logan, Ogden and Provo, Utah and Laramie, Wyoming.

The Rocky Mountain Research Station headquarters is located at 2150 Centre Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526. The 2001 Research Attainment Report is available on the RMRS website http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESEARCH STATION
Research Unit RMRS-4804

Forest Inventory and Monitoring Environmetrics
Czaplewski, Raymond L., Project Leader

FY 2001 Research Attainments
Research Unit Summary
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Problem Number and Title Current Current
Funding Staffing
($1,000) (SY's) Research Extramural Cooperation
______________________________________________________________________________

1. Scientifically credible 225 1 9 0 0
estimation methods are needed for
annual inventory and monitoring
of forest lands.

2. Scientifically credible 225 1 0 0 0
analytical methods are needed for
annual inventory and monitoring
data.

3. Scientifically credible 162 1 4 1 1
statistical methods are needed
for adapting and enhancing
available inventory and
monitoring data.

Problem 1 Scientifically credible estimation methods are needed for annual inventory and monitoring
of forest lands

Research

Heath, Linda S.; Chojnacky, David C. 2001. Down dead wood statistics for Maine
timberlands, 1995. Resource Bulletin NE-150. Newtown Square, PA: U. S. Department
of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station: 80 p.

Jones, K. Bruce; Shaw, Denice M.; Czaplewski, Raymond; Norton, Douglas J. 1995.
Integrated landscape monitoring: Conceptual approaches and applications.
Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry. 49(2): 109-117.

Lightner, George; Schreuder, Hans T.; Bollenbacher, Barry; McMenus, Kerry. 2001.
Integrated inventory and monitoring. In: Proceedings RMRS-P-19. Proceedings:
National Silvicultural Workshop; 1999 October 05-07; Kalispell, MT. Ogden, UT: U.
S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station: 78-
83.

Schreuder, H. T.; Gregoire, T. G.; Weyer, J. P. 2001. For what applications can
probability and non-probability sampling be used?. Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment. 66: 281-291.

Schreuder, Hans T.; Lin, Jin-Mann S.; Teply, John. 2000. Annual design-based
estimation for the annualized inventories of forest inventory and analysis: Sample
size determination. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-66. Ogden, UT: U. S. Department of
Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station: 3 p.

Schreuder, Hans T.; Lin, Jin-Mann S.; Teply, John. 2000. Estimating the number of
tree species in forest populations using current vegetation survey and forest
inventory and analysis approximation plots and grid intensities. Res. Note RMRS-
RN-8. Fort Collins, CO: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky
Mountain Research Station: 7 p.

Stehman, Stephen V.; Czaplewski, Raymond L.; Nusser, Sarah M.; Yang, Limin; Zhu,
Zhiliang. 2000. Combining accuracy assessment of land-cover maps with
environmental monitoring programs. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 64:
115-126.

Williams, Michael S. 2001. Performance of two fixed-area (quadrant) sampling
estimators in ecological surveys. Environmetrics. 12: 421-436.

Zhu, Zhiliang; Yang, Limin; Stehman, Stephen V.; Czaplewski, Raymond L. 2000.
Accuracy assessment for the U. S. Geological survey regional land-cover mapping
program: New York and New Jersey region. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote
Sensing. 66(12): 1425-1435.

Attainment

Research Unit RMRS-4804 continues to provide support to the national Forest
Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. The primary focus for this problem is the
testing and validation of estimation methods that are necessary for moving FIA and
other Forest Service inventories from periodic inventory to annual inventories
Technical problems encountered by FIA and cooperators, such as Nation Forest
Systems, are studied and pragmatic solutions proposed. This process ensures that
the results of the FIA inventory, which has an annual budget of $50,000,000, are
technically correct and accessible to the broadest possible audience.

The use of remote sensing technologies is an integral part of virtually every
forest inventory. Research continues in this area with a focus on assessing the
accuracy of land cover maps.

Additional studies were completed that looked at the statistical properties of
various ground sampling methods and estimators.

Problem 2 Scientifically credible analytical methods are needed for annual inventory and monitoring
data

Attainment

The analytical use of survey data is a field of statistics that is in its infancy.
Progress for the fiscal year has been focused on the further development of the
basic techniques and theory for determining cause-effect relationships from data
that were never intended for this purpose.

Problem 3 Scientifically credible statistical methods are needed for adapting and enhancing
available inventory and monitoring data.

Publications:

Research

Aguirre-Bravo, Celedonio; Dean, Denis J.; Pellicane, Patrick J. 2001. Conceptos
deSistemas de informacion geografica para gerentes y administradores. Short
courses notes published as a book for teaching GIS in Mexico and Latin America. 55
p.

Burns, Denver P.; Aguirre-Bravo, Celedonio. 2001. Knowledge-based partnership
strategies for advancing the monitoring of ecosystem sustainability in the
Americas: The CAMESA consortium. Arvore. 25(1): 149-155.

Chojnacky, David C.; Dick, James L. 2000. Evaluating FIA forest inventory data
for monitoring mexican spotted owl habitat: Gila national forest example. Western
Journal of Applied Forestry. 15(4): 195-199.

Williams, Michael S.; Schreuder, Hans T.; Czaplewski, Raymond L. 2001. Accuracy
and efficiency of area classifications based on tree tally. Canadian Journal of
Forest Research. 31: 556-560.

Cooperative

Chojnacky, David C.; Bentz, Barbara J.; Logan, Jesse A. 2000. Mountain pine beetle
attack in ponderosa pine: Comparing methods for rating susceptibility. In: Res.
Pap. RMRS-RP-26. Fort Collins, CO: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station: 10 p.

Extramural

Garnica, Jose German Flores. 2001. Modeling the spatial variability of forest fuel
arrays. Colorado State University: Ph.D. Dissertation. 200 p.

Attainment

A number of these studies completed this year look at how general vegetation based
inventories, such as FIA, can be extended and enhanced to address wildlife habitat
and rare species issues. Other completed studies address basic statistical
issues that are important to all forest inventories. Topics studied include bird
habitat assessment and estimating the plant biodiversity of an area from which
samples were drawn.

One of the accomplishments in this area has been to improve our understanding of
the limitations of FIA and NFS data for classifying plot data. A fairly common
problem for the Forest Service is for outside users of the data to generate
estimates that are incompatible with our statistical procedures. Our unit has
worked to determine the sources of these discrepancies and educate others in FIA
and NFS to the problems with over-ambitious use of these data.

Several studies and reports have been completed that extend inventory and
monitoring techniques for the assessment of ecosystem sustainability in the
Americas. The goal is to allow the seamless integration of forest inventory and
monitoring data across international borders as well as develop natural resource
cooperation between the U.S. and neighboring countries.

See the full RMRS Research Attainment Report for 2001 (PDF 3.66 MB)

USDA Forest Service - Forest Inventory and Monitoring Environmetrics
Last Modified: August 18, 2003