Systematic sampling is easy, efficient, and widely used, though it is not generally recognized that a systematic sample may be drawn from the population of interest with or without restrictions on randomization. The restrictions or the lack of them determine which estimators are unbiased, when...

This paper addresses the economics of forest fuel thinning programs on federal lands in the U.S. West, and presents a model of regional timber and product market impacts. The issue of economics is vital to the debate about fire management, and this paper presents market implications of two...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts a national inventory of fine woody debris (FWD); however, the sampling protocols involve tallying only the number of FWD pieces by size class that intersect a sampling transect with no...

Information on current forest condition is essential to assess and characterize resources and to support resource management and policy decisions. The 1998 Farm Bill mandates the US Forest Service to conduct annual inventories to provide annual updates of each state's forest. In annual...

Information on current forest condition is essential to assess and characterize resources and to support resource management and policy decisions. The 1998 Farm Bill mandates the US Forest Service to conduct annual inventories to provide annual updates of each state's forest. In annual...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the USDA Forest Service reports data and information about the Nation’s forest resources. Increasingly, users request that FIA data and information be reported and distributed in a geospatial context, and they request access to exact plot...

The adoption of nationally consistent estimation procedures for the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program mandates changes in the methods used to develop resource trend information. Particularly, it is prescribed that changes in tree status occur at the midpoint of the measurement interval...

Current estimators of variance for the k nearest neighbours (kNN) technique are designed for estimates of population totals. Their efficiency in small-area estimation problems can be poor. In this study, we propose a modified balanced repeated replication estimator of variance (BRR) of a kNN...

National forest inventory programs are tasked to produce timely and accurate estimates for a wide range of forest resource variables for a variety of users and applications. Time, cost, and precision constraints cause these programs to seek technological innovations that contribute to...

Decision support systems (DSS), also known as forest resource information systems, focus on providing forest managers information to make better decisions. DSS in forestry organizations have evolved from the integration of geographic information systems and database management systems with...