Capacity Building Workshop

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Montreal Process

TAC

• Capacity Building Workshop

Portland, Oregon August 26-31, 2001
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Goal Monitoring Forest Sustainability
Systematic information and analysis are vital!
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Monitoring the forest

• COMPOSITION
• Flora
• Fauna
• Soils
• Water
• Air

• AGENTS OF CHANGE
• Humans
• Animals
• Insects/disease
• Fire
• Weather/Climate
• Geologic events
• Pollution
• Soil productivity
• Air/water quality

• USE
• Protect biodiversity
• Habitat
• Forage
• Wood products
• Non-wood products
• Soil/water protection
• Recreation/tourism
• Cultural/spiritual

Montreal TAC Capacity Building Workshop
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Historic Reporting in the U.S.

• 240 State inventories (1933-1997)
• 7 National Assessments (1953, 63, 70, 77, 87,
  92, 97)
• 2 National Biomass Studies (1977, 87)
• 1 National Carbon Study (1987)
• 2 National Ownership Studies (1978, 94)
• 100's Primary Mill and Utilization Studies
• 2 Satellite Forest Cover Maps (1993, 97)

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Traditional view
Use
Species
Products
Available forest
Volume
Productivity
Only one piece of the puzzle...
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Putting the new puzzle together...
Water
Soils
Flora
FOREST AREA
Socio- economic
Fauna
Biodiversity
Air
Montreal Process provides a framework
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Develop Integrated Sampling Strategies
Permanent 20 Ecosystem sites throughout U.S.
Ecosystem Index Site
Phase 3 (P3) Forest Health
Permanent 8,000 forest plots 13 mile (22 km) grid
Phase 2 (P2) Forest Inventory
Permanent 125,000 forest plots 3 mile (5 km) grid
Phase 1 (P1) Remote Sensing
Millions of 1 m 1 km pixels
GROUND
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Sampling accuracy goals

• Area
• /- 1 per million hectares of forest
• Volume
• /- 3 per 100 million cubic meters

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Sampling frame consideration

• Other possible
• map layers
• Protected areas
• Watersheds
• Riparian zones
• Fire areas
• Insect/disease
• outbreak areas

Eco-zones
Sampling frame independent of analysis variables
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How do we deal with missing or incomplete data?
?
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Example 1 forest with missing volume data
While historic area estimates are for all forest
land, volume data are only for available
productive forest land before 1995. Missing data
are mostly low productivity forests in the
Southwest and Alaska.
ALASKA
98
35
20
NORTHWEST
6
SOUTHWEST
63
EAST
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Filling the volume gap
Use digital forest cover map and missing area
boundary file to establish area where Volume is
missing by forest type
Use empirical field data to estimate
softwood/hardwood volumes per hectare by type
and apply to area estimate
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Why not use existing international definitions
and protocols ?
What about data comparability?
Uh! Er! Getting some static! Could you
repeat?
Earth to TAC! Earth to TAC! Are you using
standard definitions and protocols
ACKNOWLEDGE?
FRA 2000 provides standard definitions for many
variables
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Example 2 Definitions are important
Growing Stock Volume is 25 higher using
international definition.
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Example 3 Impact on historic trends
Since 1980, the U.S. has reported unproductive
forest as Other Wooded Land in international
reports. Much of this land meets the
definition of forest but we had no volume data.
We now sample these areas and will report them as
Available Forest Land. Total forest area will
be 40 higher by including what we now call Other
Wooded Land.
Available productive forest
Available unproductive forest
Reserved forest
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Improving comparability across countries
Approximation and comparison is a process to
reduce reporting variability of a
definition. The goal is not absolute compliance
at the expense of national needs.
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Making sense of it all.

• Putting continuous systems into consistent and
  useful discrete boxes is hard work.
• Making sense of the relationships between the
  stuff in those boxes is even harder!

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Data interpretation concerns

• Making sure the picture is clear by looking at
  data different ways

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Stable area, rising volume
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Different views of the same data
Relative trend
Absolute trend
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Suggestions

• Adopt international definitions where possible
  (PLEASE!)
• Use existing Teams of Specialists to develop
  common definitions and protocols
• Make sure variables are consistent across
  indicators
• Work toward integration of map and field data for
  better spatial analysis
• Use metric units (U.S. issue)

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Caution Technology wont solve everything
Technology is a tool,
not a substitute for thinking
To succeed we must apply both generously
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Our key to success?
Common definitions Common protocols Communication
Approximation Reports YOU!
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Final thought

• You may be on the right track but if you dont
  keep moving, youll still get run over
• Will Rogers

Montreal TAC Capacity Building Workshop