Forest inventory maps for Newfoundland and Labrador were digitized and attributed so resource teams could support wood-supply planning, ecosystem management and conservation decisions.
The challenge
Large forest areas had to be interpreted and digitized without losing boundary consistency across districts.
Each polygon needed species, density, age and related attributes, creating a high risk of manual error.
The approach
SBL defined forest inventory mapping standards, interpreted aerial and orthophoto sources and digitized land-use, hydrographic and transportation features.
Automated scripts and expert review were used to populate and validate multiple attributes per polygon.
Standardize
Define forest inventory schemas and attribution rules.
Digitize
Convert aerial and map sources into GIS-ready polygons.
Attribute
Populate, script-check and validate forestry attributes.
The result
The client received a forest-inventory dataset that could feed provincial wood-supply and conservation models.
- Forest boundaries were digitized into consistent GIS layers.
- Attribute mapping improved usefulness for predictive planning.
- Outputs could integrate with Esri workflows.
- Quality checks reduced the risk of attribute and topology errors.