Handbook for inventorying downed woody material

Abstract

To facilitate debris management, procedures for inventorying downed woody material are presented. Instructions show how to estimate weights and volumes of downed woody material, fuel depth, and duff depth. Using the planar intersect technique, downed material is inventoried by 0- to 0.25-inch, 0.25- to 1-inch, and 1- to 3-inch diameter classes; and by 1-inch classes for sound and rotten pieces over 3 inches. The method is rapid and easy to use and can be applied to naturally fallen debris and to slash. The method involves counting downed woody pieces that intersect vertical sampling planes and measuring the diameters of pieces larger than 3 inches in diameter. The piece counts and diameters permit calculation of tons per acre.

Keywords

fire causes (forest), fuel inventory, forest fuels, debris, planar intersect method, sampling methods

Citation

Brown, James K. 1974. Handbook for inventorying downed woody material. Gen. Tech. Rep. INT-16. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. 24 p.