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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2016

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the use of models for increasing the precision of estimators in large-area forest surveys. It is motivated by the increasing availability of remotely sensed data, which facilitates the development of models predicting the variables of interest in forest surveys. We present, review and compare three different estimation frameworks where models play a core role: model-assisted, model-based, and hybrid estimation. The first two are well known, whereas the third has only recently been introduced in forest surveys. Hybrid inference mixes design-based and model-based inference, since it relies on a probability sample of auxiliary data and a model predicting the target variable from the auxiliary data..We review studies on large-area forest surveys based on model-assisted, model-based, and hybrid estimation, and discuss advantages and disadvantages of the approaches. We conclude that no general recommendations can be made about whether model-assisted, model-based, or hybrid estimation should be preferred. The choice depends on the objective of the survey and the possibilities to acquire appropriate field and remotely sensed data. We also conclude that modelling approaches can only be successfully applied for estimating target variables such as growing stock volume or biomass, which are adequately related to commonly available remotely sensed data, and thus purely field based surveys remain important for several important forest parameters.

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Abstract

Plantations of genetically improved forest trees are critical for economic sustainability in forestry. This review summarizes gains in objective traits and the resulting economic impact of tree breeding programmes in Scandinavia and Finland. Genetic improvement of forest trees in these countries began in the late 1940s, when the first phenotypically superior plus-trees were selected from natural environments. The main findings from this review are that (i) tree breeding can increase volume growth in the range 10–25%, and (ii) the bare land value associated with genetically improved trees gives a better return on investment and a shorter rotation period compared to the unimproved forests. As some Nordic countries are quite dependent on the forest industry, breeding programmes that have resulted in economic gains have been beneficial for society. Growth and wood quality traits are often adversely correlated, and the weighting of traits from an economic perspective could provide an index for determining maximum profit from breeding. Tree breeding faces an array of challenges in the future, such as changes in silviculture, climate, new pests and diseases, and demand for wood-based products.