FAO National Forest Assessment Project of Viet Nam

Preparatory Mission 17.-21.5.2010

MARD / GDoF, 20.5.2010

Prof. Erkki Tomppo, METLAMr Nalin Srivastava , IPCC

Dr Le Sy VietMr Dương Trí HùngMr Pham Xuan Thinh

Mr Lauri Vesa, FAO-Finland Forestry Programme

Outline

• Objective of the mission• Mission’s output• Challenges• International information requirements• Recommendations

Objective of the mission

• to discuss about the possibilities to initiate and/or further develop the inventory design for the NFA,

• mapping different sources of information,

• consulting and networking with different key stakeholders on the objectives and information needs of the NFA, alternative approaches and arrangements for co-operation and supporting the design of the inventory.

Mission’s output

The output will be a report including

a baseline analysis of the status of the national forest inventories, objectives and data needs to meet national policy and planning needs including IPCC Tier 2 and Tier 3 GHG reporting requirements; and

a proposal for the further development of the inventory, including the identification of the existing and needed data, and suggestions for the methodological improvements for developing the field sampling design for bio-physical attributes.

Some challenges

- High expectations, diverse and challenging requirements for NFA;

- Classification system and definitions should be compatible with the national and international reporting requirements;

- Forest classification system is too complex to implement in practice, and not harmonized between ministries;

- Current stratification in NFA does not fill the needs for GHG reporting;

- Need to establish new plots;

- Assessment of Trees Outside of Forest;

- No advanced method applied in using field data together with digital RS data;

- Plot design: is the current design efficient?

Some challenges,cont.

- Role of new technologies in forest assessment and monitoring;

- Use of digital map data from other ministries (e.g. soil map, cadastral data, demographic data) in stratification;

- Improve the quality of RS data, and methods in data processing;

- Requirements set for the stand level forest monitoring system;

- Need to determine which carbon pools to measure.

International information needs

Next slides, Mr Nalin Srivastava

Recommendations

Four main topics

• Inventory parameters and variables

• Reconsider the design

• Take the full advantage of remote sensing

• Capacity building

Additional and revised parameters and variables reporting and field measurements

– Forestry;

– Indicators for sustainable forestry;

– International reporting, UNFCC, REDD+

• review the current parameters and variables ;

• review the concepts and definitions;

– harmonize the national definitions, all agencies use the same

definitions and concepts;

– harmonize with the international definitions, see e.g., COST

Action E43 (Tomppo et al. 2010a);

Possibilities and needs to enhance the current field design, if any

• - the current design has been developed during the decades and well-

established;

• - some advantage to keep at least a part of the 2100 plots (82 000 subplots)

• change estimation;

• - possible revisions

• analyse the accuracy and costs using sampling studies (Tomppo et

al. 2010b);

• the current data provides good possibilities;

• plot density

– stratification;

– plot density varies between strata depending on

» the within stratum variation;

» predicted change rate.

Possible revisions, continues

• distances between sub-plots

– depends on the variability of the land use and forests;

– statistical tools, semivariance, the current data can be

utilised.

Semivariance, new information of a plot

Role of Remote Sensing in NFA

RS can be used

– to enhance forest resources estimates, particularly at province

level and for other small areas, communities, and other

management units

• many examples and models exist ;

• a place for capacity building, education both in Vietnam and

abroad possible;

– to enhance the change estimates;

– for map production

• forest resource estimates in map format;

• localizing changes;

• identification hot spot areas for changes.

Multi-source inventory, a scheme

Special studies, LiDAR

Use of LiDAR (laser, Light detection and ranging instrument)

• to replace a part of field measurements in the areas with difficult access (pilot);

• to use as an information source in management inventories;

• LiDAR is not yet mature for national forest inventories (McRoberts et al. 2010);

– additional studies are needed;

– pulse density, e.g., 0.5 – 10 emitted pulses / m2;

– other imaging parameters;

• could be an example of a special study and capacity building.

Capacity building and more special studies

– Use of remote sensing as a part of NFI, digital image

and data processing;

– Use of advanced field data collecting technology

• often time heavy and consuming technology for

NFI;

• tests are needed;

– Use of LiDAR in NFI and/or management inventory,

and in change detection.

McRoberts, R.E., Tomppo, E.O., & Næsset, E. (in review).

Advances and emerging issues in national forest

inventories. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research.

Tomppo , E., Gschwantner, T., Lawrence, M., &

McRoberts, R.E. (2010a). National forest inventories:

pathways for common reporting. Springer. 612 p.

COST Action E43: http://www.metla.fi/eu/cost/e43

Thank you !