Towards a sampling strategy for the assessment of forest condition at European level: combining country estimates
Author(s)
Date Issued
2013
Type
article
Abstract
A correct characterization of the status and
trend of forest condition is essential to support reporting processes at national and international level. An international forest condition monitoring has been implemented in Europe since 1987 under the auspices
of the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests). The monitoring is based on harmonized methodologies, with individual countries being responsible for its implementation. Due to inconsis-
tencies and problems in sampling design, however, the ICP
Forests network is not able to produce reliable quantitative
estimates of forest condition at European and sometimes at
country level. This paper proposes (1) a set of requirements
for status and change assessment and (2) a harmonized
sampling strategy able to provide unbiased and consistent
estimators of forest condition parameters and of their changes at both country and European level. Under the assumption that a common definition of forest holds among European countries, monitoring objectives, parameters of concern and accuracy indexes are stated. On the basis of fixed-area plot sampling performed independently in each country, an unbiased and consistent estimator of forest defoliation indexes is obtained at both country and European level, together with conservative estimators of their sampling variance and power in the detection of changes. The strategy adopts a probabilistic sampling scheme based on fixed-area plots selected by means of systematic or stratified schemes. Operative guidelines for its application are provided.
Additional information
L'articolo è diponibile sul sito dell'editore www.springerlink.com
Citation
Travaglini, D. et al. 2013. Towards a sampling strategy for the assessment of forest condition at European level: combining country estimates. "Environmental Monitoring and Assessment" 185 (4): 3255–3268
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
EMA_travaglini_1.pdf
Size
32.38 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
969974b2c441e93ab3fb2633afc774e1