Under the framework of the National Forest Inventory project in the period 2013-2016, the Silviculture Research Institute conducted the project "Forest inventory in Tuyen Quang province in the period 2014-2015" with the aim to determine the status of forest areas; forest stocks; unforested areas, but planned for forestry purposes; and forestry land associated with specific managers.

      The project mapped forest status at the commune, district and provincial levels based on satellite imagery interpretation (1 Spot 5 imagery, 3 Spot 6 imageries, 3 Spot 7 imageries and 23 VNREDSAT1 imageries) by eCognition. A total of 1260 image interpretation keys were used to depict 22 natural forest states including evergreen broadleaf forest, broadleaf evergreen forest on rocky mountains, mixed forest, 6 plantations and 6 unforrested status. The accuracy of image interpretation was greater than 80%.

      Regarding forest area, the inventory results show that the area of land planned for forestry was 437,820 ha, accounting for 76.3% of the natural area, of which 374,695 ha was forest-covered area and 73,125 ha was of land without forest. The forest coverage percentage of the province was 56.2%. Categorized based on forest types (classification specified in Article 4, Law on Forest protection and development), special use forest made up 40,401 ha, accounting for 9.02% of land planned for forestry, concentrated in Tam Dao National Park and designated special use forest areas. Protection forest land in Tuyen Quang province was concentrated in Na Hang, Lam Binh and Chiem Hoa districts with an area of 142,408 ha, accounting for 31.8% of the area planned for forestry. As for production forest, the total area was 265,011 ha, making up 59.2% of the area planned for forestry. Main species planted were Eucalyptus, Acacia, Acacia hybrid and Magnolia conifera.

      Forest stocks were measured on 690 fixed-area plots distributed in different terrains with different states. Methods applied to inventory stocks of natural forests were random sampling for broadleaf evergreen forests and stratified random sampling  for deciduous forests. The stock of natural forests on earthen mountains varied between 50-226m³/ha with forest state ranging from restored forest, extremely low stock forest to high stock area. High stock forests were mostly found concentrated in national parks and reserve forests that are strictly protected. On rocky mountains, stock varied between 72-341 m³/ha with forest states ranging from restored forest, extremely low stock forest to extremely high stock area. Mixed bamboo-timber forests of which stock of timber was negligible were distributed scatteredly over Tuyen Quang province. As for plantations, stratified random sampling was applied to inventory stock of each species and age class. The average stock of plantations varied between species and age classes. By forest type, the largest amount of stock was concentrated in plantations, about 11 million m³, followed by protection forests and special-use forests respectively.

      The project also developed a set of supporting documents for forest inventory in Tuyen Quang province. These include forest status maps and a detailed list of forest units that facilate forest inventory for each forest owner group.