Take five: about the beat and the bar of annual and 5-year periodic national forest inventories

Abstract Key message International forest reporting processes and increasing forest disturbances delineate new requirements regarding the information delivered by national forest inventories (NFI), with implications on their sampling strategies. An original comparative review of the sampling designs of 6 pioneer NFI programs being both annual and 5-year periodic evidences a set of common principles used to meet these demands, but also marked implementation differences, and open questions. Bases for a common framework and persisting research needs are highlighted. Developing virtual forest sampling simulation facilities at large scale is a critical challenge. Context National forest inventories (NFI) rely on diverse sampling strategies. In view of international forest reporting processes, these surveys are increasingly adopting a 5-year periodicity (their bar ). The increased need for delivering updated representative statistics in the context of the environmental crisis is making annual forest inventory (their beat ) a growing standard of the forest monitoring approach. To meet both objectives, spatially balanced sampling designs resulting in samples that can be split into yearly systematic subsamples have been devised. They ground the grid-based interpenetrating panel design principle that has generated various ingenious designs, however never presented nor reviewed to date. Aims The purpose of this review was to explore how the interpenetrating panel design principle has been implemented by the NFIs that have turned annual. The aims were to describe and frame the diversity of their designs, highlight their common bases and differences, and compare their ability to address new reporting needs. A special emphasis was placed on the graphical representation of these sampling designs. The NFI programs of France, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and of the USA were considered. Results The interpenetrating panel design principle is effective in reviewed inventories and is associated with the 5-year moving-window estimator. Original and creative design developments were identified, causing substantial variations in its implementation. They concern panel geometry, unaligned sampling options, sampling unit status, and estimation methods, making no-two inventory designs identical among those reviewed. In these inventories, the notions of annual and cyclic inventory do not substitute for each other, but appear to complement themselves to serve distinct reporting purposes. Also, negative coordination among annual samples is observed, questioning their adequacy for trend monitoring purposes. Conclusions The review evidences that a core sampling design principle, used to simultaneously operate annual and 5-year periodic forest inventory, has given rise to a diversity of implementation options. While it offers an original benchmark for any survey transition toward an annual frequency, it demonstrates the absence of a standardized framework. Developing simulation facilities for the comparison and optimization of associated designs appears as a critical priority, especially in the context of the EC forest monitoring perspective.