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| Ministry of Forests and Range |
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| National
Forest Inventory |
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Ground Plot Program
The Ground Plot Program is made up of a sub-set of the grid intersections
from the Photo Plot Program. A selection of the forested grid points,
randomly chosen from throughout the province, will be visited on the
ground so that field data can be collected. Of the 2414 potential photo
plots available in British Columbia, 268 will be visited in the Ground
Plot Program.
The ground plots are permanently established, with geo-referenced locations
and tagged trees. This will enable changes to the forest to be monitored
over time. Plots are hidden from general view as much as possible so
that their location on the ground does not influence any management
activities that occur in proximity to the plot (Figure 2).
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Figure 2
Ground plots are not physically protected or openly demarcated.
Vegetation may thus be removed or otherwise altered to reflect current
management practices
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Plot locations may fall on Crown land (including provincial parks and
protected areas), private land, forest woodlots, Tree Farm Licences,
and community watersheds. Permission is obtained from the land owner
or Tree Farm licensee before any work is undertaken in the ground plot.
All data collection is centred on a common plot location, and a combination
of line transects and nested fixed-radius plots of varying size are
used for the collection of timber, ecological, and site information.
Figure 3
The monitoring of growth measured in individual trees, succession
changes in non-tree vegetation characteristics, and mortality in individual
trees will take place in the ground plots.
The types of current data that can be reported include mensurational
information, such as the volume per hectare and basal area of the timber;
the average age and height of the dominant trees in the plot; and the
average stem diameter.
Data on species presence and the relative amounts of shrubs and herbs
will also be available, as will information on shrub and herb biomass
at the time of measurement. After the first remeasurement cycle, it
will be possible to report on changes within individual plots and the
change overall in all plots.
The first measurements for the Ground Plot Program were started in
the summer of 2000.
Reporting Schedule
The photo plot component of the NFI-BC is scheduled to provide the
first provincial data set in 2003. Initial data collection for the ground
plots is scheduled to be completed in 2004. For national initiatives
such as the Kyoto Protocol, the first reporting period will be for the
years 2008–2012. And, when the Protocol is ratified by Canada,
the NFI-BC will be an excellent source of the information necessary
to support the initiative.
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