Project Overview

The goal of the Nationwide Forest Imputation System (NaFIS) project is to produce nationwide data products that provide spatially explicit and statistically valid large- and small-area estimates of forest attributes measured by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the U.S. Forest Service. The project specifically uses forest inventory data, satellite image and ancillary data, and nearest neighbor techniques to construct a moderate-resolution national dataset of forest attributes that satisfies three strategic objectives: (1) to support spatial applications such as risk estimation, natural resource planning, and landscape scenario analyses; (2) to construct forest attribute maps; and (3) to distribute forest inventory data within spatial contexts.