110512_0411_interpineac1Interpine has completed ahead of time, the Nationwide Forest Carbon Inventory for Re-measurement of Post 1989 Forests completed over the winters of 2011,2012. A total of 202 and 193 plots were established or re-measured across the country in 2011 and 2012 respectively, on behalf of the Ministry for the Environment, LUCAS Project (Land Use Carbon Analysis System). The network of plots are part of the international reporting requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. They track and quantify changes in New Zealand land use and their respective carbon stock change.

The NZ Crown Research Institute, Scion Research was contracted by the Ministry to conduct an audit of 10% of the plot network measured. For both measurement seasons 100% of all plots audited achieved a full quality pass. This is tribute to the staff involved on the ground and in support, to keep the high standards demanded by a national forest inventory project for quantification of New Zealand’s carbon stocks for our exotic forests.

“The service Interpine provided us goes above and beyond what we asked of them. Our work has some unique requirements and their response to challenges encountered during the course of our work has been outstanding”
Nigel Searles, Planted Forests Senior Advisor, LUCAS Project, Ministry for the Environment.

As part of the work a plot was established where ever a 4km grid point intersects a post 1989 forest throughout NZ. Our experienced crews electronically capture field data from this 0.06ha plot using Juniper Allegro rugged field computers running Interpine customized software created using DataPlus Professional. These are combined with high grade GeoXH 6000 GNSS receivers capable of receiving both GPS and GLONASS satellite signals to fix plot locations for future LiDAR inventory, sometimes in dense forest and rugged terrain.

The success of this project and others in the past (LUCAS measurement seasons in 2007,2008,2010,2011,and 2012 have been completed to date), is a reflection of the vast experience in large scale forest inventory logistics management including data collection, customized software development, and data management. A robust health and safety policy supported by our tertiary level ACC accreditation meant this project was completed with no major safety incidents.

The data is now available from within the LUCAS Gateway database, which was also designed as built by Interpine as part of the LUCAS national carbon calcuation system.

If you would like more information about our carbon inventory services, feel free to contact us.