Hi. I'm putting the wraps on a Forest/Wildlife Conservation degree and word has spread to the newly appointed Parks and Rec chief of the city I work in. He has asked me to do a physical inventory of one of their parks, maybe 2 acres. I've done many surveys and asessments during my schooling and with a local forest keeper program I'm in but not a full inventory. The want DBH, estimated height and overall health estimates as well as actual species count. My question is this: since I'm going to be doing this a few hours at a time, what's the best way to keep track of what you did and where you need to start next. I've considered flags or tape but since it's a public park, things could get moved or removed. This is a volunteer project that I can use as credit so I'm not going to take a day off work and just do the whole thing at once.
Thanks for any input!
Being that its a park, you are pretty limited in what you can use. Permanent marks like paint are out, and flagging can be removed by someone other than yourself. So, you want something that is semi-permanent but can't be destroyed in the near term.
Dependent on weather conditions you can use chalk. But, you'll lose it if it rains. Same would go with something like talc. You can apply them by putting it in a sock, and smacking the tree that you're measuring.
I have used lumber crayon. I wouldn't use paint stick, because its pretty blatant, unless you put it down by the stump.
Are you going to map and number the trees? If so, you could put on metal tags. That way you or someone else could come back to those trees later on. Cost is about $12/100.
I was planning to map but wasn't sure about numbering. My current thought is to break it up into sections, strips if you will, about 25' wide and inventory the length. I could put a dot of marking paint on the grass by the sidewalk and use my compass to make a bearing each time. Maybe put a dot or 2 in the grass as I go just to keep myself on course and hope the grass doesn't grow too fast. I'll use flags when I'm working, just to make things easier and plan to always finish the grids I've started.
Looks like you have a workable method. 2 acres shouldn't take you too long to do. Another method would be to run string lines to mark the boundarys of your inventory strips to help maintain the accuracy of your 100% tree inventory and measurement within the strips.
How many trees are you dealing with on those 2 acres, approximately? I would think a few hours would be all you'd need. If not, either hire help/recruit a friend from your class or schedule a full day to dedicate to the project. To keep track of the trees, just use marking chalk to number them. If there are few-enough trees, take a GPS coordinate, map and number each tree as well as keep track of them through drawing them on a sheet of paper.
Some folks with mobile GPS have a camera built in and ArcPAd, which stores digital photography of each tree position (Geolocation). I know that might be beyond your project, but if you Google "Arcpad photo GPS", see what that calls up. Your state might even have high resolution aerial imagery of your park. We have photos now of my area that we can zoom in and see what tree species in standing there instead of the usual method of texture and color from aerial photography.