The Forest Resources Commission (FRC) recommended a review of the provincial resource inventory process in its 1991 report, The Future of our Forests. The result was the Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI). The VRI is a photo-based, two-phased vegetation inventory design consisting of:
- VRI phase 1: photo interpretation – Photo interpretation involves estimating vegetation polygon characteristics from existing information, aerial photography or other sources. No sampling is done
- VRI phase 2: ground sampling – Ground Sampling phase uses mandatory Net Volume Adjustment Factor (NVAF) sampling to help calculate inventory adjustment factors
- Forest inventory update - The Forest Inventory is updated annually for new inventories, depletion, regeneration and free growing declarations, as well as wildfires and other natural disturbance to the land base