Coordination, Cooperation, and Collaboration between FIA and NRI

The USDA Forest Service conducts a detailed survey of the Nation's forests through the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. The USDA Natural Resources Service conducts an entirely separate survey, the National Resources Inventory (NRI), to monitor status and trends in the Nation's soil and other natural resources. Blue Ribbon Panels for both FIA and NRI have recommended better cooperation and collaboration. In response, a joint venture among the State of Minnesota, the U.S. Geological Survey, NRI, and FIA searched for potential synergies by fusing FIA and NRI plot data with Landsat imagery and a statewide geographic information system. FIA and NRI plot data did prove useful as training data for classifying land cover, and as supplemental labeling data for detecting changes with multi-date Landsat imagery.