Document Type

Closed Project

Publication Date

Fall 2016

Instructor

Tugrul Daim

Course Title

Management of Engineering and Technology

Course Number

ETM 520/620

Subjects

Forest surveys -- United States -- Effect of technolgical innovations on, United States. Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (U.S.)

Abstract

The US Forest Service (USFS), Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is the nation’s forest census program that has been conducting inventories of private and public forested lands for over 80 years. This paper will discuss the history of the FIA program; how technology has changed, the way field crew’s conduct inventories, as well as look at what new technologies are available to the FIA program. The new endeavor into interior Alaska, approximately 112 million forested acres in size, is the last remaining forested area within the United States to be inventoried. In 2014, the US Forest Service FIA program conducted a pilot inventory in the Tanana Valley of Alaska. This paper looks at current ways the field teams conduct inventories, and how state-of-the-art remote sensing technologies can assist with data collection. Analysis of technologies in use resulted in a set of recommendations related to; 1) Earlier adoption of newer technologies, which in turn allows for earlier adoption of even more future technologies. 2) Tighter integrations at a project management level to ensure overlap is reduced where possible, and 3) Broader, more open relationships with scientific bodies at all levels of the organization resulting in more informed decision making with regards to technology adoption thus optimizing each field team’s data gathered from field plots.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Comments

This project is only available to students, staff, and faculty of Portland State University

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/21329

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