DOUBLE SAMPLING FOR COARSE WOODY DEBRIS ESTIMATIONS FOLLOWING LINE INTERSECT SAMPLING

Coarse woody debris (CWD), an essential component of healthy forests, has typically been defined as dead and down, large woody material. Quantification of this resource provides a useful metric for assessing wildlife habitat, fuel loading, and more recently, carbon sequestration. Although many CWD sampling methods exist, accurate estimation is difficult and expensive. Double sampling incorporates auxiliary data that is positively correlated with the attribute of interest as a means of reducing sampling costs and/or increasing estimation precision. The present study investigated double sampling applications to the common CWD sampling technique, line intersect sampling (LIS). We identified aggregate length as a potential auxiliary variable for estimating aggregate volume and abundance of CWD. However, further analysis indicated that the cost difference of the sampling phases, coupled with the correlation of the variables was not sufficient to warrant double sampling in the study area. Further investigation is needed to develop accurate and efficient CWD sampling methods with widespread applicability.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Montana

Year

2010

Author dc:creator

• Corrow, Allissa

• double sampling
• line intercept
• coarse woody debris
• line intesect

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/335

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.umt.edu:etd-1354