Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

How is FIA helping other countries monitor their forests?

Informally Refereed

Abstract

The demand for forest monitoring is growing rapidly with emphasis on carbon dynamics, due in part by incentives being negotiated under the United Nation's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDO+) process. While much of the temperate and boreal forest in developed countries is being monitored as part of national forest inventories, tropical forests are the least monitored and most at risk of deforestation. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the U.S. Forest Service is working through its National Inventory and Monitoring Applications Center (NIMAC) to coordinate technical assistance in forest monitoring for other countries. NIMAC has developed a 15-step approach and an inventory planning and design tool. Examples from Honduras, Peru, Guyana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are given. Challenges remain in the areas of efficient plot configurations and sampling designs tor remote areas with high biodiversity and in maximizing the use of remote sensing to enhance ground-based estimation.

Parent Publication

Citation

Scott, Charles T. 2012. How is FIA helping other countries monitor their forests? In: McWilliams, Will; Roesch, Francis A. eds. 2012. Monitoring Across Borders: 2010 Joint Meeting of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposium and the Southern Mensurationists. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-157. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 3-6.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/40964