Title: A Proposal for Phase 4 of the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program

Author: McRoberts, Ronald E.

Year: 2005

Publication: In: Proceedings of the fifth annual forest inventory and analysis symposium; 2003 November 18-20; New Orleans, LA. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-69. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. 222p.

Abstract: Maps of forest cover were constructed using observations from forest inventory plots, Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite imagery, and a logistic regression model. Estimates of mean proportion forest area and the variance of the mean were calculated for circular study areas with radii ranging from 1 km to 15 km. The spatial correlation among pixel predictions was incorporated into the variance calculations. The map-based estimates were compared to estimates obtained using only plot data for the same circular areas. For three circular study areas in Minnesota, the map-based estimates were similar to the plot-based estimates and more precise.