Ministry of Forests and Range National Forest Program

Photo Plot Program

The Photo Plot Program uses 2414 permanent locations throughout the province. Each plot is centred on a coordinate that has been determined from a national 20 km X 20 km grid network. Each grid intersection, or node, is the centre point for a plot that encompasses an area 2 km X 2 km in size (Figure 1). In total, all of the provincial photo plots equal about 1% of the land area of British Columbia.

For the majority of the photo plots, data will be extracted from existing forest inventory digital data files. New photo interpretation will be conducted in areas where data is not currently available.

Figure 1 Each photo plot encompasses an area 2 km X 2 km in size where broad changes in the land base will be monitored.

Each of the photo plots measured in this program will be updated with disturbance information, and the forest attributes will be projected to the reporting year to account for any growth that occurs. In this way, the photo plots will be the primary source of data to use in monitoring any broad changes that occur on the provincial land base. Data that cannot be obtained from the photo plots (such as the biomass of down woody debris) will be collected in the Ground Plot Program.

The attributes measured to determine the amount of change will include current land cover, tree species composition, the age and volume (cubic metres per hectare), disturbance activity, land use changes (such as reforestation, afforestation and deforestation), mortality, access and human influence, and soil erosion.
The photo plots also cover non-forested locations such as urban areas and water bodies. These will also be monitored to determine how these features change.

The first measurements for the Photo Plot Program were initiated in the fall of 2002.