Forest inventory teams use QField across the full inventory chain:

• Plot location, geometry, and attribute capture, including fixed-radius, variable-radius, and strip sampling
• Tree-level data with species, DBH, height, defects, and per-tree position
• Photo documentation against individual trees and at the plot level
• Regeneration counts, deadwood and snag inventory, and understory observations
• Stand-level attribute capture for inventory polygons

Designed for crews of mixed experience

Forest inventory often runs on a mix of staff, contractors, and seasonal hires. QField forms can be tuned to the experience level of the crew. Strict dropdowns and numeric constraints make it safe to put a tablet in the hands of a first-week volunteer and trust that the data coming back will be in the same shape as a senior biologist’s. The structured frontmatter also means that a crew of twelve produces a single clean dataset, not twelve incompatible notebooks.

One workflow with QGIS and QFieldCloud

Set up the plot design in QGIS . Push it to every device through QFieldCloud . Crews work offline for as long as the survey takes, then sync when they next come into office connectivity. Conflict-safe merges handle the case where two crews edited the same record.

Forestry teams using QField for inventory

• Young farmers reduce deforestation by 71% in Ghana , where community-based monitoring teams use QField in the Tano Offin Forest Reserve
• Browse all forestry success stories →

Looking for the broader picture? See QField for forestry and silviculture → .

QField is used across the full span of forestry fieldwork:

• Forest inventory and plot sampling , with structured tree-level forms and plot geometry
• Silviculture and harvesting operations tracking , from planting blocks to post-harvest verification
• Forest habitat and biodiversity mapping , under dense canopy and in remote terrain
• Forest health monitoring , tracking pests, disease, and tree condition over time
• Forest road and infrastructure inventory
• Riparian buffer monitoring and compliance documentation

Working under canopy

Forest fieldwork sits in the hardest conditions for mobile mapping. Mobile data is unreliable. GPS multipath under dense canopy degrades positioning. Crews spend days at a time out of office contact, often in environments where a paper notebook still feels like the safer bet.

QField is built for those conditions. Basemaps and layers are packaged onto the device before the crew leaves the office, so nothing depends on a network connection. Forms can be tuned to forestry data with value-relation widgets for species codes, numeric constraints for DBH and height, and required-photo rules at any decision point. For survey-grade positioning, external GNSS receivers connect over Bluetooth with live accuracy visible during capture.

One workflow with QGIS and QFieldCloud

Forestry teams prepare the project in QGIS once, push it to every device through QFieldCloud , and run conflict-safe sync at the end of each day. The same QGIS project that an inventory crew uses in the field is the one the office uses to plan next year’s operations.

See QField in real forestry projects

Look at how QField is being used by forestry and forest-conservation programmes around the world:

• Young farmers reduce deforestation by 71% in Ghana , through community-led monitoring in the Tano Offin Forest Reserve
• Community-led mapping for land rights and forest protection in Sarawak , with the Bruno Manser Fonds
• Building on top of QFieldCloud , in Italian green infrastructure inventory
• Browse all forestry success stories →