Effects of adjacent stand characteristics and boundary distance on densityand volume of mapped land units in the boreal forest

The possibility that forest characteristics on one side of a stand boundary will be related to the characteristics of the forest type on the other sid e of the boundary was examined in this study for the boreal forest in Quebe c, Canada. It was found that alone, due to uncertainty in the photo-interpr etation process, forest density and height - as identified by photo-interpr eters - explained only about 10% of the variability inherent in total fores t volume, balsam fir volume, or percentage balsam fir volume. The addition of boundary-related variables improved this to about 15% of variability exp lained. This led to the conclusion that the volume at any given location in the forest is related to the distance of the location from its stand bound ary, as well as the characteristics of the forest type on the other side of the boundary. However, it was concluded that the relatively small improvem ent in R-2 does not justify using boundary-related information for addition al forest stratification in the planning of (for example) forest inventorie s. Nonetheless, this work has implications for all ecosystem sampling that is based on maps derived from manual interpretation of natural phenomena.