THE UNIFIED SYSTEM OF FOREST INVENTORY WORKS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: FROM CONCEPT TO IMPLEMENTATION

V. I. Arkhipov

Lesproekt LLC

 Zastavskaya st., 33, Saint Petersburg 196006, Russian Federation

E-mail: lesproekt.spb@mail.ru

Received: 30.05.2026

Revised: 18.06.2026

Accepted: 24.06.2026

The commissioning of the Federal State Forest Information System (FGIS LK) has qualitatively changed the requirements for forest management planning information, while its production base has degraded: a thirty-five-year methodological gap in remote forest inventory, a reduction in the number of forest inventory engineers of state forest planning organizations from about 4000 specialists in 1980 to slightly more than 400 by 2026, a drop in the average annual volume of forest inventory from about 40 to less than 10 million ha against the estimated demand of 30-40 million ha per year, and a four- to five-fold deficit of interpreter workstations. Objective. Scientific and production substantiation of the design of the unified system of forest inventory works of the Russian Federation and confirmation of its production feasibility. Materials and methods. System and regulatory analysis; statistical analysis of departmental data; technical and economic modelling; a production experiment – implementation of the full technological cycle at three sites with independent acceptance of the results by FGIS LK. Results. A two-zone design is substantiated: the forest taxation zone (300-400 million ha, stereo remote sensing imagery with a resolution of at least 0.4 m/pixel) and the forest survey zone (quarter-level detail, imagery of at least 10 m/pixel). A three-stage inventory model with the preliminary status of the desk stages and online entry of the third-stage results into FGIS LK, the “5+1” and “4+1” organizational formulas of a single two-year cycle, and a twelve-stage production technology with built-in quality control are developed. The techno-economic assessment of the public-private partnership yields 6.25-8.9 billion RUB per year for 35-50 million ha, with a federal share of 3.6-4.8 billion RUB; the effect is at least a two-fold increase in labour productivity with an approximately two-fold reduction in unit cost. Conclusion. Given the technical solvability of personnel, infrastructure and methodological problems, the main constraint is the institutional risk – the probability that systemic proposals will not receive serious expert and public consideration.

Keywords: forest management planning, unified system of forest inventory works, forest inventory, Earth remote sensing, forest inventory zoning, analytical-measurement image interpretation, continuous forest management planning, Federal State Forest Information System, public-private partnership, data quality control

REFERENCES

Arkhipov V. I., Kontseptsiya sozdaniya edinoy sistemy lesouchetnykh rabot Rossiyskoy Federatsii: proekt (Concept for creating the unified system of forest inventory works of the Russian Federation: draft), 2025, URL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21644754 (2026, 21 June).

Arkhipov V. I., O lesouchetnom bardake (On the mess in forest accounting), Lesnaya Gazeta, 2015, No. 54, 21 July.

Arkhipov V. I., Perekhod k kompleksnomu lesoustroystvu – osoznannaya neobkhodimost’ (Transition to integrated forest management planning as a recognized necessity), Tsifrovoy les: Proc. Forum. 25 May 2026. Nizhny Novgorod, 2026a. URL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21645626 (2026, 21 June).

Arkhipov V. I., Tekhnologiya kompleksnogo lesoustroystva “Ot s”emki – do zagruzki vo FGIS LK”: materialy prezentatsii (Integrated Forest management planning technology “From imagery to uploading into FGIS LK”: presentation materials), Saint Petersburg: OOO “Lesproekt”, 2026b, URL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21646342 (2026, 21 June).

Arkhipov V. I., Baskov V. I., Berezin V. I., Chernikhovskiy D. M., Metodicheskie polozheniya po taksatsii lesov sposobom lesotaksatsionnogo konturnogo i analitiko-izmeritel’nogo deshifrirovaniya materialov distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli (Methodological provisions for forest inventory by the method of forest taxation contour and analytical-measuring interpretation of Earth remote sensing data), Saint Petersburg: OOO “Lesproekt”, 2026, URL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21762201 (2026, 21 June).

Byulleten’ Schetnoy palaty Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Bulletin of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation), 2024, No 12 (326).

Dopolneniya i izmeneniya k Instruktsii po provedeniyu lesoustroystva v edinom Gosudarstvennom lesnom fonde SSSR, utver. prikazom Gosudarstvennogo komiteta SSSR po lesu ot 31.03.1989 No 59 (Additions and amendments to the Instruction on forest management planning in the unified State Forest Fund of the USSR), Moscow, 1989.

Ershov D. V., Gavrilyuk E. A., Tikhonov D. N., Nikitina A. D., Belova E. I., Metodika opredeleniya taksatsionnykh kharakteristik verkhnego yarusa drevostoya na osnove obrabotki dannykh aerofotosyomki i vozdushnogo lazernogo skanirovaniya na primere model’noy territorii zapovednika “Kivach” (A method for determining the taxation characteristics of the upper forest canopy based on aerial photography and airborne laser scanning data processing on the example of the Kivach Nature Reserve model area) Aerospace methods and geoinformation technologies in forest science, forestry and ecology: Proc. IX All-Russian Sci. Conf. with international participation (15-17 April 2025), Moscow: CEPF RAS, 2025, pp. 36–38.

Fassnacht F. E., Latifi H., Stereńczak K., Modzelewska A., Lefsky M., Waser L. T., Straub C., Ghosh A. Review of studies on tree species classification from remotely sensed data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 2016, Vol. 186, pp. 64–87.

Hamedianfar A., Mohamedou C., Kangas A., Vauhkonen J., Deep learning for forest inventory and planning: a critical review on the remote sensing approaches so far and prospects for further applications, Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research, 2022, Vol. 95, No 4, pp. 451–465.

Lesnoy kodeks Rossiyskoy Federatsii: Federal’nyy zakon ot 04.12.2006 No. 200-FZ (st. 67, 68) (Forest Code of the Russian Federation: Federal Law), Moscow, 2006.

Lesoustroitel’naya instruktsiya: utverzhdena prikazom Ministerstva prirodnykh resursov i ekologii Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 5 avgusta 2022 g. No 510 (Forest Management Planning Instruction: approved by the order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation of 5 August 2022 No 510]. Moscow, 2022. (In Russian).

O federal’nykh gosudarstvennykh informatsionnykh sistemakh, obespechivayushchikh predostavlenie v elektronnoy forme gosudarstvennykh i munitsipal’nykh uslug (osushchestvlenie funktsiy): postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 24.10.2011 No 861 (On federal state information systems providing state and municipal services in electronic form: Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation), Moscow, 2011.

O personal’nykh dannykh: Federal’nyy zakon ot 27.07.2006 No. 152-FZ (On personal data: Federal Law), Moscow, 2006.

O vnesenii izmeneniy v Lesnoy kodeks Rossiyskoy Federatsii i otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiyskoy Federatsii: Federal’nyy zakon ot 02.07.2021 No 304-FZ (On amendments to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation: Federal Law), Moscow, 2021.

Ob informatsii, informatsionnykh tekhnologiyakh i o zashchite informatsii: Federal’nyy zakon ot 27.07.2006 No. 149-FZ (On information, information technologies and information protection: Federal Law), Moscow, 2006.

Ob obespechenii dostupa k informatsii o deyatel’nosti gosudarstvennykh organov i organov mestnogo samoupravleniya: Federal’nyy zakon ot 09.02.2009 No 8-FZ (On ensuring access to information on the activities of state bodies and local self-government bodies: Federal Law), Moscow, 2009.

Ob utverzhdenii perechney platnykh uslug (rabot), otnosyashchikhsya k osnovnym vidam deyatel’nosti FGBU «Roslesinforg»: prikaz FGBU «Roslesinforg» ot 26.02.2026 No 42-P (On the approval of the lists of paid services (works) related to the main activities of FGBU “Roslesinforg”: order of FGBU “Roslesinforg” of 26 February 2026 No 42-P), Moscow, 2026.

Perechen’ porucheniy Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii po itogam soveshchaniya s chlenami Pravitel’stva Rossiyskoy Federatsii 14 aprelya 2025: ot 16.05.2025 No. Pr-1078 (pp. 7a, 7b) (List of instructions of the President of the Russian Federation), Moscow, 2025.

Poruchenie Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 18.09.2024 No. Pr-1898 (Instruction of the President of the Russian Federation), Moscow, 2024.

Strategiya razvitiya lesnogo kompleksa Rossiyskoy Federatsii do 2030 goda: utverzhdena rasporyazheniem Pravitel’stva Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 11.02.2021 No. 312-r (Strategy for the development of the forest complex of the Russian Federation until 2030), Moscow, 2021.

Tomppo E., Haakana M., Katila M., Peräsaari J., Multi-Source National Forest Inventory: Methods and Applications, Managing Forest Ecosystems, Vol. 18. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008, 374 p.