Canada's Forest Inventory (CanFI) 2001 for the boreal eco-region - percent forested, Ontario

This dataset contains Canada's national forest inventory (CanFI) 2001 data for plots within the boreal region of the province of Ontario, Canada. The attribute displayed is percent forested. Refer to the "attributes" tab to view other attributes contained in this dataset. For more information, refer to the CanFI 2001 document at: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collection_2007/nrcan-rncan/Fo143-2-408E.pdf

From CanFI:
Canada's existing national forest inventory (CanFI) is compiled about every five years by aggregating provincial and territorial forest management inventories and reconnaissance level information. Stand-level data provided by the provincial and territorial management agencies are converted to a national classification scheme, and then aggregated to the map sheet, provincial and national levels for storage, analysis and reporting. The most recent version (CanFI 2001) is derived from 57 source inventories.

Management agencies are continually updating and upgrading their forest inventories, and the age of their inventories is continually changing. As a result, CanFI is an accumulation of different-aged information, collected to a number of different standards.

The current approach to national inventory is cost-effective in that it is based on existing data. The process is well established and accepted by the contributing agencies, and provides detailed information about Canada's forests that is consistent with forest management information. The inventory also contains location-specific information on the characteristics and quantity of the forest resource, providing mapping and spatial analysis capabilities.

While this periodic compilation has many advantages, CanFI data can be up to 25 years old and are collected to variable data standards. CanFI does not allow tracking of the rate and nature of changes to the resource over time, nor does it necessarily reflect the current state of the forests. It also generally lacks information on non-timber attributes and is of unknown precision.

To address weaknesses with CanFI and to meet new business demands, the Canadian Forest Inventory Committee (CFIC), managers of forest inventory from federal, provincial and territorial governments, developed a new approach to produce a national forest inventory. Instead of a periodic compilation of existing information from across the country, the National Forest Inventory (NFI) is a plot-based design consisting of permanent observational units located on a national grid.

The purpose of the NFI is to assess and monitor the extent, state and sustainable development of Canada's forests in a timely and accurate manner. By collecting and reporting information to a set of uniform standards, it allows for consistent reporting across the country on the extent and state of Canada's landbase to establish a baseline of where the forest resources are and how they are changing over time. In addition to providing consistent estimates for traditional forest inventory attributes, the NFI will provide a framework for collecting additional data relevant to the reporting of progress towards sustainable development (e.g., socio-economic indicators), as well as data related to forest health (e.g., insect damage, disease infestation), biodiversity and forest productivity.

The core design of the NFI has the following essential elements:

* A network (grid) of sampling points across Canada to insure complete coverage;

* Stratification of the sampling points by terrestrial ecozone with varying sampling intensity among the strata so that each ecozone is adequately sampled for statistical reliability;

* Estimation of area and other attributes from remote-sensing sources (photo plots) for consistency, timeliness and to reduce cost;

* Estimation of species diversity, wood volumes, and other desired data from a ground-based sub sample for attributes not available from photo plots;

* Estimation of changes over time from repeated measurements of all sample plots for monitoring purposes and all plots will be remeasured at regular intervals.to related forest inventory sites