Ahead of the NSW state election on 25 March 2023, the NSW Government caretaker period has commenced. Limited updates will be made to this website during this period.
There is a growing requirement for forest managers to monitor and report on the sustainable management of their forests and timber plantations. This in turn requires the application of accurate, repeatable and affordable methodologies aimed at measuring a suite of economic, ecological and social values, as well as productivity, vegetation recovery, etc…. The Forest Resources assessment team has scientific expertise in remote sensing, GIS, spatial modelling, biometrics (including sampling design strategies) and ground measurement methodologies. Application of these expert skills result in the delivery of quantitative information on the status and trends present in NSW native forests and plantations.
The Forest Science Resources team has produced interactive reports on the NSW forest extent across various administrative boundaries. The reports provide detailed calculations of forest area by tenure across key forestry administrative boundaries such as IBRA, IFOA & RFA regions. Visit the NSW Forest area by Tenure dashboards page for more details.
The team will be producing more dashboards in the near future.
The Mechanical Fuel Load Reduction Trials are investigating whether mechanical fuel load reduction can reduce bushfire risk in an economical, socially acceptable and environmentally sound manner around key assets, such as conservation areas or townships, where prescribed burning is undesirable for a range of reasons. Final report coming soon.
This project, funded in part by Forest Wood Products Australia (FWPA), investigated methods to link ground-based 3D point cloud LiDAR data with high-density aerial LiDAR and potentially satellite-based (GEDI) LiDAR data for the purpose of characterising the complex structure of moist eucalypt forests compared to manual collection methods. Report submitted to FWPA, FWPA project PNC546-2021 awaiting publication.
The project is a proof-of-concept study to determine the feasibility of:
Structural information can be used in the following operational areas:
This project reports to LLS on the following themes on the Private Forests of NSW
This project assessed extent and status of private native forests (PNF) on the North Coast. The project saw more than 600 landholders, contractors and industry representatives interviewed or surveyed, as well as more than five million hectares mapped, and one million hectares of timber resources assessed using aerial photography.
The Forest Resources team has published papers and reports in many research areas including but not limited to:
John Samuel | Leader & Project Forester
john.samuel@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Huiquan Bi | Principal Research Scientist
huiquan.bi@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Christine Stone | Honorary Research Scientist
christine.stone@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Amrit Kathuria | Biometrician
amrit.kathuria@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Masoomeh Alaibakhsh | Spatial Modeller
masoomeh.alaibakhsh@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Sam Hislop | Remote Sensing Scientist
sam.hislop@dpi.nsw.gov.au