Small area estimation in forests affected by wildfire in the Interior West

Abstract

Recent emphasis has been placed on estimating amount and characteristics of forests affected by wildfire in the Interior West. Data collected by FIA is intended for estimation over large geographic areas and is too sparse to construct sufficiently precise estimates within burn perimeters. This paper illustrates how recently built MODISbased maps of forest/nonforest and biomass coupled with field collected plot data can be used to produce estimates of forest biomass within small geographic areas. FIA-collected forest attributes were modeled as functions of 250-m resolution digital ancillary variables using nonparametric tree-based methods, then maps were built over diverse ecological mapping zones. A composite estimation approach was applied to balance the potential bias of synthetic estimates (generated solely from the maps) against the instability of a direct estimator (generated from small numbers of FIA plots). Methods are described and illustrated through applications to fires that occurred in the years 2002 and 2003.

Citation

Moisen, G. G.; Blackard, J. A.; Finco, M. 2004. Small area estimation in forests affected by wildfire in the Interior West. In: Greer, Jerry Dean, ed. Remote sensing for field users; proceedings of the tenth Forest Service remote sensing applications conference; 2004 April 5–9; Salt Lake City, UT. Bethesda, MD: American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. CD-ROM.