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Advisory group debates how to handle extended transects, unharvested areas and azimuth methods
Summary
Presenters said extended measurements—often from unharvested areas or stream curvature—inflate variance but can represent compliant conditions; recommendations included confirming implemented harvest boundaries, collecting upstream/downstream azimuths to reduce oblique transects, and using sensitivity analyses instead of throwing out measurements.
Katie Kennedy and Mark Rose explained the primary causes of extended transect measurements (unharvested areas, stream sinuosity) and urged against discarding those data without context. Kennedy said when implemented harvest did not include parts of a notified harvest, the rule does not apply to those unharvested areas and those points should be treated accordingly.
"So when possible, it would be recommended that... the field sampling was revised to match whatever the implemented harvest was," Kennedy said, arguing for pre‑survey verification. Mark Rose recommended collecting azimuths both upstream and downstream and averaging them to minimize oblique transects caused by local curvature, and suggested using bootstrapping or subsampling during analysis to assess how extended measurements affect confidence intervals rather than omitting data outright.
Committee members raised concerns about whether excluding unharvested areas could bias compliance estimates; staff and contractor responses emphasized documenting intent via notified boundaries and written plans and following up with stewardship foresters and operators before making exclusion decisions.
