Parameters, criteria and indicators for assessment of trees outside forests

Any method for assessment has several positive and negative aspects that make the method suitable or unsuitable under a given set of conditions and resources. These may be the factors such as costs , time, technical manpower availability, and so on. These aspects can be assessed systematically to derive a set of criteria and the corresponding indicators. Criteria are the basis against which a resource is to be assessed. The indicator is the proof of the occurrence or non-occurrence of the resource/methodology and is judged accordingly. Thus, the criteria and indicators (C&I) are the basis on which the utility of a resource or a system can be judged. These C&I, when selected properly and administered judiciously, can provide a better picture of the utility of a system or method. The broad set of C&I for TOF assessment is shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Criteria and indicators for the assessment of trees outside forests

Attributes/criteria for assessment	Indicators
Precision	Standard error
Time	Time per district
Cost	Cost per district
Robustness/practicability	- Training person-days - Training costs
Replicability	Applicability to varying situations (macro-level applications)

These C&I can be modified and elaborated according to the specific need(s) of the site. The observations thus obtained can be rated, as shown in the example below. The rating scale is a flexible tool and can be standardized accordingly.

Table 5. Scoring scheme

Indicator	Methodologies (scores)
	Ground sampling	Aerial photography	Remote sensing	Remote sensing + ground survey	Secondary information
	1	2	3	4	5
Precision	8	9	5	8	3
Time	4	6	7	7	8
Cost	5	3	4	1	8
Robustness	3	5	6	9	2
Replicability	2	2	5	9	2
Total score	22	25	27	34	23

*The rating scale is a preferential scale, ranging from 1 to 10 in this case.

¨ Time: a higher value indicates greater preference.

¨ Cost: a lower value indicates higher costs and thus lesser preference.

¨ Robustness: a higher value indicates greater robustness.

¨ Replicability: a higher value indicates more replicability (e.g. ground sampling (score 2) indicates that the method is less replicable over a period of time because the time required for ground sampling is lengthy and during that period the vegetation changes substantially.)

Thus, remote sensing and ground survey (column 5) carries 34 points and is the best method considering all 5 criteria namely precision, time, cost, robustness and replicability.

Replacing the numerical values by qualitative information was also suggested. A topographic plot design matrix was designed as shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Topographic plot design matrix

Criteria	Topography		Geometry of plots
	Mountain	Flat	Block	Linear	Scattered
Area	Small	Large	1.0 ha	0.1 ha	5 ha
Shape	Uneven	Even	Square	Strip	Round
Design	Nested	Quadrant	Quadrant	Transect	Case-wise

This matrix would help in understanding the site and the location where the process is being carried out in a more reliable and efficient manner.