Common Stand Exam-based Ecological Monitoring Data from New Mexico Uplands, 2007-present

The present package is a collection of the available quality-controlled data collected during the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute's (NMFWRI) summer Uplands field season. We term our data as such as it is gathered in the montane upland areas of northern New Mexico, which covers pinion-juniper habitat through alpine wet mixed-conifer forests. A variation of the Common Stand Exam methodology is used to collect data, including aerial and ground cover ocular estimates, canopy density using spherical densiometers, tree regeneration, mature tree measurements, and fuel load estimates using Brown's transects.

Data was collected from 2007 until the present. The Institute collects monitoring data because of the USFS Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP), a now defunct grant program which funded forest restoration projects in New Mexico occurring on Federal, Tribal, State, County or Municipal forest land. This effort specifically funded projects that sought to meet any of the following objectives: Wildfire threat reduction, Ecosystem restoration, including non-native species reduction, Reestablishment of historic fires regimes, Reforestation, Preservation of old and large trees, Small diameter tree utilization, and Creation of forest-related local employment.

Even though the CFRP has ended, we continue to maintain and improve on nearly 20-year's worth of data to provide a public repository of forest data to help land managers in New Mexico to better manage fire-adapted forests -- a requirement set forth by the Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2004, the NMFWRI's founding legislation. Completeness and accuracy of data is variable based by year, but increases with recency and efforts have been made to ameliorate older data. The Institute both collects additional data each year and presently quality-controls archival data; as such, the data package will be updated quarterly until the data is up-to-date and will be updated yearly thereafter to account for summer field season.

The data provided to EDI is in the form of CSV files, but represents data stored in a relational database. Connecting tables together is not necessary to use the data, but additional information can be provided by the Data Manager if desired. Said database is hosted on both a server on NMHU's campus and an Azure database, which are both regularly backed up. Until our full dataset is available via NMFWRI's website, additional data can be provided between updates on an ad hoc basis, if available.

本数据包汇集了新墨西哥州森林与流域修复研究所（New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute, NMFWRI）夏季高地野外调查季采集的全部经过质量管控的可用数据。我们将本数据集定义为高地数据集，因所有数据均采集自新墨西哥州北部的山地高地区域，覆盖范围涵盖矮松-杜松栖息地至高山湿生针阔混交林。数据采集采用改进版的标准林分调查法（Common Stand Exam），具体包括植被盖度目视估测（分空中、地面覆盖）、使用球形测树仪（spherical densiometers）测定林冠郁闭度、林木更新情况调查、成熟林木参数测量，以及采用布朗样线法（Brown's transects）估算可燃物载荷量。

数据采集工作始于2007年，至今仍在持续。本研究所开展监测数据采集工作，缘起于美国林务局（USFS）协同森林修复计划（CFRP）——这是一项现已终止的资助项目，曾为新墨西哥州境内联邦、部落、州、县或市属林地的森林修复项目提供资金支持。该项目专门资助可达成以下任一目标的修复项目：降低野火威胁、生态系统修复（含外来物种清除）、恢复历史火灾制度、再造林、保护老龄与大径级林木、小径木利用，以及创造林业相关本地就业岗位。

尽管CFRP项目已终止，但我们仍在持续维护并完善近20年的数据集，旨在打造公开的森林数据资源库，助力新墨西哥州的土地管理者更好地管理火适应性森林——这一要求出自2004年《西南森林健康与野火预防法案》，同时也是NMFWRI的成立立法依据。数据的完整性与准确性因年份存在差异，但随着采集时间越近精度越高，且我们已采取措施对早期数据进行优化完善。本研究所每年都会采集新增数据，同时也会对历史档案数据开展质量管控工作。因此，本数据包将按季度更新直至数据完全同步最新状态，此后则每年更新一次以匹配夏季野外调查季的数据产出。

提交至环境数据倡议组织（Environmental Data Initiative, EDI）的数据集以CSV文件形式存储，但其底层数据存储于关系型数据库中。使用该数据集无需进行表关联操作，但若有需要，可向数据管理员申请获取额外关联信息。该数据库同时托管于新墨西哥高地大学（New Mexico Highlands University, NMHU）校园服务器与Azure数据库（Azure），二者均会定期进行备份。在完整数据集通过NMFWRI官网公开之前，若有剩余可用数据，可在两次更新周期之间以临时按需方式提供。