Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/75042
on a national two- by two-kilometer monitoring grid established by the Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada. In Ontario, the grid intensity being used is 20 by 20 kilometers, and the plot network includes photo and ground plots. Photo-plot dimensions are two- by two-kilometers (1 percent sample) and oriented in a north-south, east-west direction. Ground plots will be established at each forested grid-intersection point. Approximately 1,600 plots will be established, and the measurement cycle for ground and photo plots will be 10 years, resulting in approximately 160 plots measured annually (see Figure 4). The current plan is to measure ground plots the year after measuring photo plots. The acquisition of permanent forest-inventory photo plots is coordinated with the acquisition of new imagery, and the installation/measurement of permanent forest-inventory ground plots is inte- grated with the OMNR Growth and Yield Program's permanent growth plots. The photo and ground plots are being classified according to their respective procedural manu- als. Enhanced measurements will be collected for ground plots that are part of Canada's National Forest Inventory. Sustainable Development Canada's new plot-based National Forest Inventory (NFI) provides timely and accurate measurement and monitoring of the sustainable development of Canada's national forests. By collecting and reporting information to a set of uniform standards, consistent countrywide reporting is possible. The information will provide a baseline of where forests are and how they're changing through time. The NFI also provides a framework for collecting additional data about forest health and productivity, biodiversity, and the social and economic values sup- ported by forests. The enhanced FRI program now is halfway through the first 10-year cycle. At this stage, image acquisi- tion is complete; inventory production has been com- pleted on 16 percent of the area and an additional 24 percent is in production (see Figure 5); the draft design of the FRI assessment procedure has been completed; 11 percent of the permanent forest- inventory ground plots have been completed; and 32 percent of the permanent forest-inventory photo plots have been completed. The production plan for the next five years is to complete the image processing; establish vendors of record for the inventory production and complete the remaining 373,452 square kilometers (including measuring approximately 70,000 calibration plots); finalize the inventory-assessment procedure and Figure 5. A map shows the project's forest-resources inventory production status as of December 2011. conduct assessments on 491,385 square kilometers (including measuring approximately 25,000 assess- ment plots); complete 36 percent of the permanent forest-inventory ground plots with the current vendor; and contract out the measurement of approximately 930 permanent forest-inventory ground plots and 610 permanent forest-inventory photo plots. Joseph Kapron, R.P.F., is manager, Inventory Monitoring and Assessment, Science and Information Branch, Ministry of Natural Resources; e-mail: joe.kapron@ontario.ca. JUL Y 2O12 / WWW . GEOPLA CE . COM 25 Figure 4. A field crew records measurements for a permanent forest-inventory ground plot.