Suitability Evaluation of the Forest Resource Inventory Method in Lao People's Democratic Republic

Abstract

In this study suitability evaluation of the forest inventory method is needed for establishing sustainable forest management plans in the production forest areas of Lao PDR. In the year 2010, Laos PDR accepted new forest survey method to change the sampling intensity from 3.0% to 0.625% in order to save time and cost. So this study is aiming to evaluate the appropriate sampling intensity for forest resources inventory in Lao People Democratic Republic. To find out the appropriate sampling intensity, the four sampling intensities were chosen, such as past 3%, current 0.625%, and newly 0.75% and 1.5%. And these four sampling intensities were applied to the evergreen forest compartments of Production Forest Management Area, which is one of the three forest categories in Lao PDR. The sample plot size of 600 m2 (20m X 30m) was used for measuring the diameter at breast height (DBH) (≥ 15 cm) of all the trees equally to the all the sampling intensities. The research results revealed that the 0.75 and 1.5% sampling intensities (newly proposed) were not significantly different to 3.0% (the traditional one). On the other hand, the current sampling intensity (0.625%) was significantly different in comparison to the rest of the sampling intensities (0.75, 1.5, and 3%). Changing sampling intensity from 0.625 to 0.75 and 1.5% may certainly reduce the errors encountered due to the size of the sampling unit. In contrary, changing the intensity from 3% to the newly proposed 0.75 and 1.5% may reduce the time and cost incurred to maintain the inventory. In all, these research results implicate to provide an opportunity to replace the past and current two, such as non-representative 0.625% and cost-taking 3.0%, sampling intensities to the newly proposed 0.75% level of sampling intensities for forest resources survey of Lao PDR.