In collaboration with Green Leaf Consulting Services, LLC (GLCS), Tesera conducted an HRIS Inventory of the Dynamic Forest Restoration Block – Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 221 (DFRB SGL 221) near Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. The goal of the project was to provide consistent, reliable attribute estimates of reporting unit attributes to help support GLCS with the development of more reliable forest stand management prescriptions.

The terrain is rolling and wooded. Pennsylvania State Game Lands are purchased, managed and maintained primarily for outdoor recreation in the form of sport-hunting. In addition to sport-hunting, DFRB SGL 221 is also managed for a range of ecological and timber values.

The current inventory indicates that forest composition is dominated by an abundance of hardwoods and to a lesser extent conifers, including: white oak, northern red oak, red maple, scarlet oak, sweet birch, pignut hickory, white pine, black oak, shagbark hickory, white ash and sugar maple. The relatively low levels of native conifer species represented in the inventory are believed to be attributable to past harvesting and inventory bias.

Past forest inventory ground sampling concentrated largely on upland hardwood acreage with potential for active-intensive management practice implementation.

The project made use of existing data: (i) geolocated ground sample plot observations from the adjacent Buck Hill property; and (ii) freely available remote sensed data (LiDAR and 4-band color infrared imagery) along with machine learning cloud-computing geospatial analytics to extrapolate a detailed forest inventory.

“As a small business, we were looking for an affordable way to increase our data collection capabilities without increasing our staff time. Using their High Resolution Inventory Solutions (HRIS) technologies, the team at Tesera provided a detailed analysis of our project’s forest stand conditions. Their services greatly improved our ability to evaluate stand attributes, and develop and refine forest management prescriptions that reflect our ecological and silvicultural goals.”

Josh Flad, SAF & ACF Certified Forester, ISA Certified Arborist

Technical Paper / Case Study

Review our technical paper and case study of the HRIS Inventory performed on the Dynamic Forest Restoration Block - Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 221 (DFRB SGL 221) near Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania.

Questions, contact us to learn more about this project.