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Mapping forest composition from the Canadian National Forest Inventory and land cover classification maps

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 184, pages 4655–4669 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Canada’s National Forest Inventory (CanFI) provides coarse-grained, aggregated information on a large number of forest attributes. Though reasonably well suited for summary reporting on national forest resources, the coarse spatial nature of this data limits its usefulness in modeling applications that require information on forest composition at finer spatial resolutions. An alternative source of information is the land cover classification produced by the Canadian Forest Service as part of its Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests (EOSD) initiative. This product, which is derived from Landsat satellite imagery, provides relatively high resolution coverage, but only very general information on forest composition (such as conifer, mixedwood, and deciduous). Here we link the CanFI and EOSD products using a spatial randomization technique to distribute the forest composition information in CanFI to the forest cover classes in EOSD. The resultant geospatial coverages provide randomized predictions of forest composition, which incorporate the fine-scale spatial detail of the EOSD product and agree in general terms with the species composition summaries from the original CanFI estimates. We describe the approach and provide illustrative results for selected major commercial tree species in Canada.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service. Authors extend their gratitude and thanks to Mark Gillis and Katja Power (Pacific Forestry Centre, Victoria, BC) for providing technical support with CanFI data, and Kevin Lawrence and Darren Allen (Great Lakes Forestry Centre, Sault Ste. Marie, ON) for their help with preparing a seamless EOSD land cover dataset. Steen Magnussen (Pacific Forestry Centre, Victoria, BC) also provided valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Thanks also to the journal reviewers for suggestions that improved the manuscript. Any errors remain the responsibility of the authors.

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  1. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2E5, Canada

    Denys Yemshanov, Daniel W. McKenney & John H. Pedlar

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  1. Denys Yemshanov
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  2. Daniel W. McKenney
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  3. John H. Pedlar
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Correspondence to Denys Yemshanov.

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Yemshanov, D., McKenney, D.W. & Pedlar, J.H. Mapping forest composition from the Canadian National Forest Inventory and land cover classification maps. Environ Monit Assess 184, 4655–4669 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2293-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2293-2

Keywords

  • National Forest Inventory
  • Land cover classification
  • Stochastic prediction
  • Species cover
  • Canada
  • Stand volume
  • Forest composition
  • Tree species