Basic informaiton

National Forest Inventory of Cape Verde (NFI Cape Verde) is a multisource survey of forest resources on Republic of Cape Verde. It combines aerial photo interpretation with ground sampling. The state of four main „forest & woodland“ land-use classes (i.e. Forest, Open forest, Agroforestry and Shrubland) is monitored on permanent inventory plots using princip les of statistical inventory.

The system is based on a first-phase systematic sample grid of 150×150 m covering all the terrestrial area of nine main islands and a second-phase stratified random sample of inventory plots. The f irst-phase sample is used to estimate areas of defined land-use classes using manual interpretation of aerial photos, while the second-phase sample provides additional information about state of forest classes using direct field measurement.

The system is capable to provide a broad spectrum of information starting with areas of different land-use classes and detailed information about trees, regeneration, shrubs, endemic species etc. Tree volume, biomass and carbon content are calculated from field data on the level of single tree and then summarized. S tandard mathematical-statistical formulas for stratified random sampling are used for extrapolation.

The project provides also locally-parameterized stem profiles for main tree-like growing species (e .g . Eucalyptus sp., Grevilla sp., Pinus sp. etc.) and biomass equations for shrub-like growing species (e .g . Prosopis sp.).

The results can be used on national level for strategic planning and evaluation of the forestry policy.