Source: U.S. Forest Service
As members of the forest products industry continue to reduce their landholdings, monitoring reliable future timber supplies becomes an increasingly important issue. This issue requires both spatial and forest inventory information to meet the strategic planning needs of these entities. Increased depth in the archival span of imagery available from the Landsat program in conjunction with timber estimates from FIA data have been used by Larson and McGowin, Inc. to fill this information gap in the southern U.S. by further refining timber supply projections.
In generating this information for various clients, Landsat MSS and TM (including ETM+) data have been used to create forest age and type maps with temporal origins as early as 1972 to as recent as 2007. By using forest type and age layers, spatial products can be created that have matching attributes to those presented by FIA. In doing so, FIA volumes can be adjusted to generate expected total volumes for regions by using the remotely sensed/image processed type and age acreages. Once volumes by type and age classes are established, the SubRegional Timber Supply (SRTS) model can be used to analyze supply/demand relationships between multiple products, endogenous land use, varying growth and yield components and regional and local demand estimates.
Article Reference:
Collins, C.A. and R.C. Seawell (2008). Using Landsat Imagery and FIA Data to Examine Wood Supply Uncertainty. Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposium 2008; October 21-23, 2008; Park City, UT.