Forest inventory is an arcane subject describing:
- what is in a forest (trees and more),
- how much, and
- how this situation is changing and is expected to change with time?
The answers to these questions matter. Without this information we can’t get what we want from the forest, and we can’t keep what is there for the greater good of all to share and benefit from.
Forests start with trees, but include much more:
- soils,
- waterways,
- wetlands, and
- habitats
… to name a few.
If we really want to understand these things we need to know where to find them, and to what extent, and that means having a good inventory. That means the inventory is accurate at the local scale (and reasonably precise). It is of high resolution (can be used to represent very small patches of land and forest cover), flexible (open to wide variety of interpretations and applications), and sufficiently detailed (i.e. of sufficient substance to be fit for purpose). At the same time the inventory must cover an area that is large enough to provide the context necessary to assess the value of all forest ecological goods and services, and to manage them effectively and efficiently.
If we want to take care of our environment, then one good place to start is to have an inventory that is of sufficient quality to do just that. The exciting part about all of this has been the advent of airborne laser scanning to help us achieve these outcomes in a way that we never thought possible before. This mixed with a good dose of analytics complete with machine learning can produce the product we are looking for.
My plea is to professional foresters and to those that hold a special interest in the forests around them:
Please raise public awareness of the opportunity for improved forest inventory using the many recent advances in technology.
Convince yourself that better forest inventory can and should be had. Go the extra mile and talk with public and private agencies about the opportunity and the opportunity to take advantage of it. To me this is of most importance where there is indeed a public interest in the outcomes from forest and land management. Time for us to move the goal posts I think.
Ian Moss, PhD RPF
Chief Analytics Officer @ tesera.com
