Staff involved
IFN is made by INCDS “Marin Drăcea”. Every year, the entire surface of the land with forest vegetation is covered, covering a quarter of the total number of sample areas (about 6000 permanent sample areas and 1250 temporary sample areas) with field works.
Currently, 79 people work within the IFN. 21 field teams were organized, each team consisting of 3 people. A control team ensures the verification of the field measurements made by the 21 teams. Another 17 people work in the IFN departments of photo interpretation, logistics, databases, dendrochronology and chemical analysis of forest soils.
Measuring equipment
The tools and equipment for the fieldwork were selected to meet the requirements of precision and efficiency and to allow the measurement of all the characteristics of the trees in the sample areas. Field teams are equipped with electronic measuring devices such as field computers, GPS and Vertex III. A special computer program was developed within the Institute, which allows both the recording of all measured field data, directly in the computer, and their transmission to the IFN central database.
Quality assurance
There are three ways to ensure the quality of IFN data. The most effective is a very good training of field teams and performing inter-calibration tests between teams. In this regard, a 2-week training course is organized every year with all IFN teams.
Another way is to use a system of correlations, logical connections and restrictions in the field data entry computer program and to control the data collected by the field teams using specialized software.
The third way is to control the measurements made by the field teams, by performing a re-measurement of a percentage of the IFN sample areas by the control team.