Estimating County level Timber Volume in Virginia Using Small Area Estimation

Accurate estimates of forest components such as, biomass, composition, or health are important for forest management and policy decisions.  The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program serves as a national survey system to assess such forest characteristics within the United States (US).  When making estimates at the county level or smaller spatial scale with FIA plot data, the accuracy in estimation of forest components drops.  Here we use NAIP data in conjunction with FIA data in order to improve upon county level timber volume estimation precision in Virginia using Small area estimation (SAE).