National Forest Inventory - A New Tool for Monitoring Canada’s Forests

By Nathan Lowther

January 2010

Information on Canada’s forests has become more consistent and accessible, thanks to the recent launch of the new National Forest Inventory (NFI). Built on partnerships between various governmental agencies, the NFI’s activities are coordinated by National Resources Canada’s (NRCan’s) Canadian Forest Service (CFS).

The NFI is designed to monitor the extent, state and sustainability of Canada’s forests. Starting in the late 1990s, the federal government, working with the provinces and territories, began to map out a permanent national grid for collecting data. The resulting 20,000 plots, spaced 20 kilometres apart, allow for the collection of highly detailed information on forest area, wood volume and total biomass.

Alex and Mark use the NFI database to crunch inventory data.

“This is the first national forest inventory data set based on uniform standards and definitions allowing for consistent reporting across the country,” says Mark Gillis, Manager of the NFI.

Provincial and territorial agencies collect the data and submit it to NRCan for storage, analysis and reporting. The inventory will remeasure 50 percent of the plots every five years to produce periodic assessments of the state of Canada’s forests and how they are changing.

“The previous version, Canada’s Forest Inventory (CanFI), did not allow us to monitor change — this system does,” Mark says. “Monitoring is fundamental for assessing and reporting on forest health and sustainability.”

One percent of Canada’s land mass is sampled using two types of plots. First, 2x2-km photo plots, each located at the centre points of the 20x20-km grid, provide information on land cover and land use. Secondly, ground plots are randomly located on one-tenth of the photo plot locations. The information measured on the ground — large and small trees, stumps, woody debris, ecological species, soil samples and other features — complements the information derived from the aerial photos.

Now Available Online

In addition to the outstanding scale and scope of its information, the new forest inventory is a uniquely valuable resource because of its accessibility. All information — including maps, plot summaries, photographs of the plots, and custom reports — will be available online and free of charge at Canada’s National Forest Inventory Web site. And users can access the baseline reports generated by NRCan or use their own specific parameters to create their own.

“This is one of the largest forest databases in the Canadian Forest Service,” says Alex Song, an NFI data management specialist who led the design and development of the new site in cooperation with the National Forest Information System. “New technologies not available five to ten years ago are facilitating the integration of large data sets, allowing us to make the data available online.”

This new resource will serve the very wide range of users — including domestic and international policy makers, students and faculty at universities, provincial and territorial governments, NGOs, First Nations and the public — who submit numerous requests for forest inventory information every year.

For more information, contact Mark Gillis (Mark.Gillis@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca) or Alex Song (Alex.Song@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca) in the NFI Project Office at the CFS Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, B.C.