Broadening modern resource inventories: A new protocol for mapping natural and anthropogenic features

Abstract

Conventional forests inventories narrowly focus on timber attributes and often neglect other aspects that may be relevant for other purposes. In an effort to broaden the usefulness of these inventories, we introduce a new protocol based on softcopy photo-interpretation for efficiently capturing both natural and anthropogenic features across a variety of landscapes. Salient aspects of this protocol include (1) the combined use of polygon, point and line feature representation; (2) over 50 fields per attribute table; and (3) semi-automated quality control tools. We show an application example over a 3-km by 7-km sample area in central-eastern Alberta.