The assessments performed in this report utilized a detailed land cover extraction and analysis procedure. More information on this process can be found on the Accuracy Assessmentpage. For future, less-rigorous assessments, the communities may elect use the i-Tree Canopy tool.
i-Tree Canopy allows users to easily interpret Google® Earth aerial imagery and produce statistical estimates of tree cover and other land cover types. The tool also calculates levels of uncertainty for the land cover estimates provided. The initial random point locations derived from i-Tree Canopy can be re-imported in future works to produce a statistically valid estimate of land cover over time.
This tool provides a quick and inexpensive means for communities and forest managers to assess their tree canopy cover, however the results may not be as accurate as those generated by a more rigorous tree canopy assessment. The communities can use the i-Tree Canopy tool to quickly measure land cover changes and progress towards canopy goals between more thorough and complete tree canopy assessments.