Forest inventory estimation with mapped plots

Procedures are developed for estimating means and variances with a mapped-plot design. The focus is on fixed-area plots, and simulations are used to validate the proposed estimators. The mapped-plot estimators for means and variances are compared with simple random sampling estimators that utilize only full plots. As expected, the mapped-plot estimates have smaller mean squared errors than the simple random sampling estimates. The theory for fixed-area plots is easy to apply, although additional work is required to map plots in the field. Corresponding theory for variable plots is developed but not tested with simulations. The difficulty of applying these methods to variable plots is greater, but not prohibitive.