Minnesota DNR -- Forest Inventory Analysis

FIA is a national program of the USDA Forest Service that conducts and maintains comprehensive inventories of the forest resources in the United States. The FIA Unit in St. Paul is responsible for inventorying more than 80 million acres of forest land spread across 11 Midwestern states.

On all the field plots, we gather quantitative and qualitative measurements that describe

• Tree diameter, length, damage, amount of rotten or missing wood, and tree quality
• Counts of tree regeneration
• General land use
• General stand characteristics such as forest type, stand age, and disturbances
• Changes in land use and general stand characteristics
• Estimates of growth, mortality, and removals (determined by revisiting plots from the previous time period)

Getting an air boat ride to a remote plot from the friendly folks at Nett Lake Indian Reservation.