Southern forest inventory and analysis volume equation user’s guide

Reliable volume estimation procedures are fundamental to the mission of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. Moreover, public access to FIA program procedures is imperative. Here we present the volume estimation procedures used by the southern FIA program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. The guide presented includes a description of the relevant variables populated in the public FIA database, a description of the set of equations used to estimate tree volume in the south, the volume equations, definition of terms, species-specific (or species group) coefficients for each equation, and examples of estimating individual tree volume.