Treesearch

There is an increasing interest in estimating biomass for longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.), an important tree species in the southeastern U.S. Most of the individual-tree allometric models available for the species are local, relying on stem diameter outside bark at breast height (DBH) and total tree height (HT), but seldom include stand-level variables such as stand age, basal area or stand density. Using the biomass dataset of 296 longleaf pine trees sampled in the southeastern U.S. by different forestry research institutions, we developed a set of local and general systems of tree...

For remote sensing-assisted natural resource inventories, the effects of spatial resolution in the form of pixel size and the effects of subpixel information on estimates of population parameters were evaluated by comparing results obtained using Landsat 8 and RapidEye auxiliary imagery. The study area was in Burkina Faso, and the response variable of interest was firewood volume (m3/ha). A sample consisting of 160 field plots was selected from the population following a two-stage sampling d0esign. Models were fit using weighted least squares; the population mean, μ, and the variance of...

Much of the North American wood products industry was severely impacted by the recession of 2008–2009. In addition, many sectors within this industry face intense global competition. Against this backdrop, we examine economic opportunities for hardwood manufacturers to achieve greater competitive advantage via product customization, through a literature review and synthesis. We also discuss several related themes including agility, lean manufacturing, and clustering. We found that, in globally competitive environments, hardwood producers must be agile to adapt to economic conditions and...

Because shrub cover is related to many forest ecosystem functions, it is one of the most relevant variables for describing these communities. Nevertheless, a harmonized indicator of shrub cover for large-scale reporting is lacking. The aims of the study were threefold: to define a shrub indicator that can be used by European countries for harmonized shrub cover estimation using data from their respective national forest inventories (NFIs); to quantify the effects of using different NFI field cover scales; and to establish bridges to facilitate harmonized estimation. Data for shrub species...

Land use measurements collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program allow for monitoring and modeling changes among a detailed set of land use categories. We analyze these data in the southeastern United States to test hypotheses regarding the influence of timber and other land rents, population growth, and various topographic position variables on transitions among rural and developed land uses. This region provides a complete and recent set of land use and forest measurement, is the most important and dynamic timber production region in the world, and increasingly is the...

What's ahead for woodworkers in construction-based sectors and the planned investments for improving production and profits? For a seventh straight year, construction-based markets continued their growth trends as U.S. spending on multi-family housing increased in 2017, while spending on single family housing and nonresidential construction both increased for a sixth straight year, and spending on repair and remodeling increased for the fifth consecutive year.

Public lands are typically established in recognition of their unique ecological value, yet both ecological and social values of public lands change over time, along with human distribution and land use. These transformations are evident even in developed countries with long histories of public land management, such as the United States. The 20th Century saw dramatic changes in the American population, in distribution and in racial and ethnic diversity, leading to new challenges and new roles for public lands. Our goal with this paper is to review changing demographics and implications for...

The gain-loss approach for greenhouse gas inventories requires estimates of areas of human activity and estimates of emissions per unit area for each activity. Stratified sampling and estimation have emerged as a popular and useful statistical approach for estimation of activity areas. With this approach, a map depicting classes of activity is used to stratify the area of interest. For each map class used as a stratum, map units are randomly selected and assessed with respect to an attribute such as forest/non-forest or forest land cover change. Ground observations are generally accepted...

The term shelf-life is used to characterize the elapsed time beyond which a commodity loses its usefulness. The term is most often used with reference to foods and medicines, but herein it is used to characterize the elapsed time beyond which airborne laser scanning (ALS) data are no longer useful for enhancing inferences for forest inventory population parameters. National forest inventories (NFI) have a long history of using remotely sensed auxiliary information to enhance inferences. Although the combination of model-assisted estimators and ALS auxiliary data has been demonstrated to be...

National forest inventories routinely report estimates of parameters related to aboveground biomass (AGB), but sample sizes are often insufficient to satisfy precision guidelines and reporting requirements. Aerial photography, satellite imagery, and increasingly airborne laser scanning (ALS) data are all used as sources of auxiliary information to address this challenge. Combining inventory ground plot and ALS data requires that the data be co-registered to a common coordinate system. When measuring plots, inventory field crews typically obtain estimates of plot coordinates using global...