forest inventory

Forests play an important role in regional and global carbon (C) cycles as they store large quantities of carbon invegetation (Brownetal., 1996). Because of their importance in the global C cycle, there is an increasing need to accurately estimate the amount of C (or biomass) forests contain (Brown and Lugo,1982; Birdsey, 1992). Information about above ground biomass (AGB) is necessar

1. Vertical Aerial Photograph

A vertical photograph is one which has been taken with optical axis of camera approximately perpendicular to the horizontal plane. A deviation up to 4° is acceptable. This gives the map of the earth detail somehow in same scale.

• Aerial Photographs (APs) is a perspective projection of earth’s surface while map is its orthographical projection.
• AP provides images on a photographic film or paper
• It shows actual images of objects found on earth and ground features
• Scale of APs vary from place to place even in the same photograph
• It records all ground objects whether wanted or not
  

1. Location of forests, their distribution and area: A map of forests in general and by functional classificationin particular is required.

• First National Level Forest Inventory carried out as a cooperation project between Nepal and USAID during 1963.
• A systematic rectangular grid of 2.2 miles by 10 miles covering entire country was used.
• Second inventory was carried out by Land Resource Mapping project (LRMP) during 1978-79.
• Third National Level Forest Inventory was started in the early 1990s and the f
  

Definition

It is originally a commercial term meaning the record showing quantity and value of articles in a store. Forest inventory, therefore provides the information about size and shape of the area as well as qualitative and/or quantitative information of the growing stock.