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Understory

Forest Health Data: Three Ways to Understand Forest Conditions

Abstract

The Forest Service has three primary mechanisms for gathering data about forest conditions and health at the landscape scale: Aerial detection surveys, the plot-based inventories, and satellite remote sensing analysis. This fact sheet summarizes these three data sources, and introduces an ongoing project to integrate multiple data sources in order to take advantage of their unique strengths.

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Download (PDF 446KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2026-06/pnw-Insect%20Sensing%20Data%20Types%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20Final%20V2.pdf
Last updated June 30, 2026