“Total-Balancing” an inventory: A method for unbiased inventories using highly biased non-sample data at variable scales

Abstract

I describe here a method that can provide unbiased estimates and sampling errors with increasingly precise polygon information from non-sample sources that are often free and readily available. This method is extremely flexible, and it appears to be in line with the main trend of modern sampling – you first estimate using any information available, and then you sample to adjust those estimates. At later dates, further readjustment can be done at will, as long as the total is held constant.