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Analysis issues due to mapped conditions changing over time

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Plot mapping is one of the innovations that were implemented when FIA moved to the annual forest inventory system. Mapped plots can improve the precision of estimates if the mapped conditions are carefully chosen and used judiciously. However, after plots are remeasured multiple times, it can be difficult to properly track changes in conditions and incorporate this into the analysis. Early discussions about plot mapping considered 2 mapping options: 1) full mapping and 2) fuzzed mapping. Full mapping is what FIA adopted. Fuzzed mapping (fuzzing) was felt to provide less precision, since it would assign a single condition to each subplot. However, fuzzing would never allow a condition proportion to be less than 0.25 and would be much easier to track over time than full mapping. These issues are elaborated and some comparisons based on FIA data are presented.

Parent Publication

Citation

Van Deusen, Paul. 2015. Analysis issues due to mapped conditions changing over time. In: Stanton, Sharon M.; Christensen, Glenn A., comps. 2015. Pushing boundaries: new directions in inventory techniques and applications: Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2015. 2015 December 8–10; Portland, Oregon. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-931. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. p 58.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/50173