Forest Assessment and Monitoring

This subject is not offered in 2014.

120 hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

This subject promotes understanding of quantitative assessment of forest carbon, timber and biodiversity. Specifically, the aim is to:

• Present the state of the art of forest assessment for carbon, timber and biodiversity
• Present methods for formulating and planning an effective and efficient forest assessment
• Enable participants to implement a modern assessment and determine the advantages and disadvantages of available methods
• Enable participants to analyse assessment data to determine reliable estimates and confidence limits

Topics include: introduction to statistics and sampling theory, issues in forest assessment design, modern measurement tools and techniques, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and specific techniques for assessment of carbon, timber and biodiversity.

This subject will provide students with an advanced understanding of:

• The role of assessment in forest management
• Statistical techniques for sampling design and analysis, sources of assessment errors and their significance
• The use of standard equipment to estimate tree and stand parameters such as diameter, basal area, height, crown cover and stem volume
• The use of modeling tools to estimate forest carbon
• Techniques to asses forest biodiversity including species richness and composition
• The use of GIS for forest assessment and creating maps using ArcGIS
• The use of remote sensing in forest assessment and project management. Ability to access and use various satellite data for specific purposes

At subject completion students should be able to design and implement a forest assessment.

Major Report (50%), Progress exercises (50%)

• P Burrough, Principles of Geographical Information Systems for Land Resources Assessment.
• P.W. West, Tree and Forest Measurement.
• Elzinga, C.L., D.W. Salzer, J.W. Willoughby and J.P. Gibbs, 2001 Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations. Blackwell, Malden

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.