Forest Inventory in Thailand - Past, Present and Future Perspectives : National Forest Inventories

1993

S. 89-95

7 Lit. Ang.

Unselbständiges Werk

200103942

Forest inventory operations in Thailand are of two main types: national forest inventory and working plan inventory. The first national forest inventory was carried out during the years 1955 to 1960 with an assistance from FAO. Cluster sampling with camp unit system, 288 plots in 6 squared-tracts per camp, was employed and the data recorded from 0.1-ha circular plots. Modified camp unit system was employed during the second and the third national forest inventories, i.e. 1969 to 1976 and 1977 to 1981 respectively. Under this design, one camp consisted of 320 plots from 4 units of 4 tracts each. Thirty four permanent camps or 10,880 plots were established for continuous monitoring of forest resources: 8 camps in the North, 9 in the Northeast, 9 in the Central, and 8 in the South. Unfortunately, only two measurements could be made since the majority of the plots were severely deforested. During the second half of the 1980s, the pilot studies on selective sampling with lines of fixed area plots and polyareal plots (point sampling) were carried out in northern part of the country with the cooperation of ASEAN Institute of Forest Management (AIFM). The pilot studies on fixed-area plot, strip and point samplings was carried out in tropical rain forests of the South in 1990 and 1991 as part of the permanent monitoring of tropical rain forest in ASEAN countries. The current national forest inventory tends to cover the period from 1992 to 1996 which corresponds to the time frame of the 7th National Economics and Social Development Plan. L-shaped clusters, 4 km apart from each other, with 9 plots in each cluster, will be employed covering an area of 14,341,700 hectares. The data and information from this inventory will serve national, regional and global monitoring of forest resources.