Considerations for Adapting Conventional Forest Management Methodologies to a Spatial Framework Using a Gis: Data, Statistical Techniques, and Errors

Adapting conventional aspatial forest management tools to a geographic information system will require more than merely writing a suitable software interface. There is a conflict between the forest inventory data collected presently and the spatial requirements of a GIS. A similar conflict exists between categorical map data and statistical techniques which utilize continuous dependent variables. Finally, neither GIS nor the statistical techniques generally used to develop quantitative forest management tools can accomodate uncertainty of individual measurements. Yet these latter can be significant sources of errors for map-based forestry data. This paper discusses problems inherent in existing forestry data collection and analytical approaches and spatial errors that must be considered to include a spatial component in existing quantitative forest management tools.