Cost-effective monitoring is essential to ensure that soil conservation policies encourage forest practices that protect soil productivity and hydrologic function in British Columbia's forests. An effectiveness monitoring protocol was developed as part of the province's Forest and Range Evaluation Program (FREP) describing a set of indicators of soil conservation, and procedures for evaluating them in the field. The procedure was applied to more than 70 cutblocks over the 5-year period from 2005 to 2009. At the same time, high resolution images were obtained after harvest for the cutblocks, along with more than 60 others, totalling 125 cutblock images from 26 forest districts. The images were initially to be used to aid in the field evaluations, but subsequently became an integral part of an internet-based, collaborative approach to elicit the opinion of experts regarding soil conservation effectiveness. This report summarizes the results obtained from the image-based evaluations for more than 125 cutblocks, and compares the image-based and field-based results for 73 cutblocks. We discuss the implications for soil conservation monitoring in British Columbia, and the potential use of high resolution imagery to improve monitoring efforts and other essential natural resource management functions.
- Pages
- 31
- Published in
- Canada
