Abstract

GIS in Precision Forestry: Current Trends and Future Needs
Track: Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management
Authors: L. Monika Moskal

As society begins to take action to mitigate global climate change, carbon sequestration is becoming a valued forest ecosystem service. Forest biomass components provide other ecosystem services as well, such as: water interception and run-off, drought and flood easing, temperature mitigation in urban areas as well as habitat creation fostering biodiversity. By utilizing mobile GIS, remote sensing analysis including LiDAR, and GIS tools forest inventory mesuration and ecosystem services modeling such as carbon sequestration, biomass estimation, canopy thermal shading, and water interception can all be accounted for. Seamless integration of field data, existing databases and derivatives from remotely send data are the foundation of precision forestry supporting management and decision making. The need for hardware and software integration in the field through mobile GIS, integrated visualization and analytical tools, and decision optimization techniques are discussed in this presentation with the perspective of precision forestry today and in the future.

L. Monika Moskal
University of Washington
Precision Forestry Cooperative
School of Forest Resources
Seattle, Washington 98195
United States
Phone: 2062216391
E-mail: lmmoskal@u.washington.edu