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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2006

The applicability of national forest inventories for estimating forest damage outbreaks - Experiences from a Gremmeniella outbreak in Sweden

Wulff S, Hansson P, Witzell J

Abstract

The design of the Swedish National Forest Inventory as well as the National Forest Damage Inventory is a sparse sample of systematically allocated plots. In this study data were combined from these two independent inventories to estimate geographical distribution, area extension, and disease development of a Gremmeniella abietina (Lagerb.) Morelet epidemic. For the combined data the standard error for estimated total area of affected Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var.latifolia Engelm.) forests was about 11%. Assessments of the proportion of pine trees with fresh shoot blight infection shows that changes larger than 1% are significantly (p < 0.05) estimated. By testing in pairwise cross inventory, it was shown that the accuracy of the assessment of total shoot blight symptoms was fairly good in 2001-2002, with a kappa statistic of 0.59-0.61. Severely damaged trees were identified with an agreement of kappa = 0.81. The total area of pine forest both slightly and severely affected by G. abietina during 2001-2003 was estimated to be 484 000 ha. Three geographically separate damage centres were distinguished. Thus, despite a relatively sparse sample plot density, the national forest inventories have good potential for estimating the geographical distribution, areal extent, and dispersal of extensive damage outbreak. Results are dependent on the inventories being carried out with an accurate identification of target objects

Keywords

Gremmeniella

Published in

Canadian Journal of Forest Research
2006, Volume: 36, number: 10, pages: 2605-2613
Publisher: NATL RESEARCH COUNCIL CANADA-N R C RESEARCH PRESS

    SLU Authors

      • Hansson, Per

        • Department of Silviculture, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Forest Science

      Publication Identifiers

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/X06-148

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/9377