Dendrométrie et inventaires des ressources forestières [ LBIRF2101 ]

iCampus

Supplementory courses: The course focuses on ground-based assessment methods. Air-borne methods for natural resource assessment are developed in the courses of geomatics, surveying and photogrammetry.

1. Main concepts:

- Definitions, interest, measurement and / or estimation of static characteristics of trees (e.g. diameters, heights, volumes, tree form) and stands (e.g. distributions, density and stocking, productivity and site quality);

- Growth of trees and stands: concepts, estimation, production tables, modeling principles;

- Complete inventory and sampling methods: (i) basic concepts of sampling, (ii) sampling units, (iii) programming, implementation and processing of inventory results, (iv) inventory methods (e.g. systematic inventory, simple random sampling, point sampling, stratified random sampling, single-stage cluster sampling, double sampling).

a. Contribution de l'activité au référentiel AA (AA du programme)

M1.1, M1.2, M1.4, M2.1, M2.2, M2.4, M3.5, M3.6, M3.7, M3.8, M6.2, M6.5, M6.8,

b. Formulation spécifique pour cette activité des AA du programme

At the end of this course, the student:

- knows the principles of operation of the main dendrometric instruments and is able to use them appropriately in the field;

- knows how to characterize the trees and stands in terms of stocking and growth;

- is able to understand the dynamics of forest stands and to formalize the factors involved in a quantitative way;

- knows the main 'tools' used to characterize the growing stock (individual tree, stand) ; is able to use existing tools appropriately, and to build them from raw data;

- knows and understands the main methods used to estimate the growth of trees and stands ; is capable to use them in a management context;

- knows the principles of sampling and is able to establish appropriate sampling strategies to address a management issue related to forestry, forest management and planning;

- is able to formalize and synthesize a forest mensuration analysis in a technical report respecting scientific rigor;

- written examination and evaluation of the report.

- lectures, including concrete examples, case studies and exercises

- realization of a mini-project involving the acquisition of field measurements, a computer-aided processing and the writing of an argued report. This report is illustrated with graphs and tables.

1.     Table of contents

Volume of trees

- volumes and biomasses

- stem form assessment

- stem form and volume

- log rules

- volume tables

Tree size and height

- tree size

concepts

measurement

- heights

concepts

measurement

Characterization of growing stock

- mean characteristics: size, heights, volumes

- cumulative variables: basal area, volumes

- distributions

- relationships between dendrometric characteristics

dominant height ' age - site fertility

total height ' size - age

Growth of trees and stands

- tree growth

size (circumference, radius, diameter, basal area), height and volume increment

stem analysis

- stand growth

repeated stand inventories

increment core method

applications

- introduction to growth models

Inventories

- fundamentals of sampling

context

variables, scales, units

populations and samples

sampling

types of estimators and tree/plot factors

- sampling units

types of sampling units

comparison between sampling units

sampling units over time and space

- simple random sampling and systematic sampling

simple random sampling

systematic sampling

- point sampling

point sampling in practice

estimators

sample size

- stratified random sampling

definition and interests

estimators

sample size and allocation of sampling units

- single- and multi-stage sampling

definition, interests and limitations

single stage or cluster sampling

two-stage cluster sampling

- double sampling

principles

applications

2.     Additional information

This course consists of two modules:

- Module 1 (30h): Theoretical course - 14 sessions of 2 hours on the methods of measurement and sampling as well as on the main instruments used for the quantification of trees and forest stands.

- Module 2 (22.5 h): The principles studied in theoretical courses are implemented in the form of a mini-project involving the acquisition of field measurements and their computer-aided processing.

- compulsory material (power point slides, transparencies, reference documents) are made available to the student on iCampus;

- for more information, students may usefully consult the following references:

Rondeux, J. 1999. La mesure des arbres et des peuplements forestiers. Les Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux, Gembloux, Belgique, 521 p.

Shiver, B.D., Borders, B.E. 1996. Sampling techniques for forest resource inventory. John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA, 356 p.