To enable better forest management decisions it is important that the sample data used in calculations is as accurate as possible. A new Swedish study combines the local pivotal method (LPM) with the micro stand approach and compared it with the traditional systematic sampling design for estimation of forest stand variables.
The LPM uses the distance between units in an auxiliary space – in this case airborne laser scanning (ALS) data – to obtain a well-spread sample. Two sets of reference plots were acquired by the two sampling designs and used for imputing data to evaluation plots.
While the study had a relativity small dataset, the LPM sampling design, when combined with the micro stand approach, showed potential for improvement and might be a competitive method when considering the cost efficiency.
Click here for source (Silva Fennica)
Image Credit: Daimler
