Treesearch

In 2002, Wisconsin was part of two pilot projects in cooperation with the US Forest Service. The first was a street tree assessment, and the second was an urban FIA project. The data generated by these pilots changed the way that Wisconsin DNRs’ Urban Forestry Program conducts its business. Although there have been several urban FIA pilot projects throughout the U.S., in 2012, Wisconsin became the first state where those pilot FIA plots were re-measured. The results of this re-measurement demonstrate how urban foresters in Wisconsin have altered their tactics in recent years due to several...

Data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program (including the Timber Products Output portion) are critical for assessing the sustainability of US timber production. Private sector users of this information rely on it for strategic planning, and their strong support of the FIA program has helped to ensure funding and program viability. Non-timber forest products harvested from US forests also play a critical economic and social role, yet much less is known about their abundance, spatial distribution, and trends. Recent research has demonstrated that FIA data can provide important...

Since the inception of its annual plot design, the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the USDA Forest Service has integrated into its data collection operations elements of digital technology, including data loggers, laser distance recorders and clinometers, and GPS devices. Data collected with the assistance of this technology during a typical plot visit comprise measurements of object dimensionality and location, as well as ocular assessments of inventory parameters of interest, all organized in a tabular form. Unlike the wealth of tabular data collected every year on FIA...

Although a prerequisite for an accurate assessment of tree competition, growth, and morphological plasticity, measurements conducive to three-dimensional (3D) representations of individual trees are seldom part of forest inventory operations. This is in part because until recently our ability to measure the dimensionality, spatial arrangement, and shape of trees and tree components precisely has been constrained by technological and logistical limitations and cost. Active remote sensing technologies such as airborne LiDAR provide only partial crown reconstructions, while the use of...

The FIA program has been inventorying the Nation’s forestland since the 1930s. The focus of the CORE FIA program is to capture trees that meet the FIA definition of forestland, in doing so it excludes trees that do not. Leadership recognized the need to fill this gap and the 2014 Farm Bill has instructed FIA to “Implement an annualized inventory of trees in urban settings, including the status and trends of trees and forests, and assessments of their ecosystem services, values, health, and risk to pests and diseases”. The objective of the Urban FIA program is to meet this mandate by not...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program is the unrivaled source for long-term, spatially balanced, publicly available data. FIA will continue to be providers of data, but the program is growing and adapting, including a shift in how we communicate information and knowledge derived from those data. Online applications, interactive mapping, and infographics provide broader appeal to a wider audience compared to state reports or peer-reviewed journal articles. This presentation uses ArcGIS Online applications to tell the story of how tree species distributions are shifting in response to...

Hawaiian forests provide a wide array of non-timber forest products for both traditional and modern uses. Flowers, vines, and ferns are collected for creating garlands or lei for hula dances and parades. Lei made from materials gathered in the forest are made for personal use and sold, especially during graduation times. Bamboo is harvested for structures and for making traditional Japanese New Year’s ornaments or kadomatsu. Firewood is collected for traditional earth ovens. While some local gathering might impact local resources, little is known about amounts of non-timber forest products...

Assessing the size and structure of non-timber forest product (NTFP) markets is difficult due to a lack of knowledge about NTFP supply chains. Harvesting ginseng and other wild medicinal plants has long provided a source of income and cultural identity in Appalachian communities in the eastern United States. With the exception of ginseng, the extent of the harvest of medicinal forest products is unknown. Surveys with ginseng dealers about other NTFPs generate data on the trade volume for a variety of other products, and the geographic distribution of their harvest. A multi-method approach...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of air pollutants linked to a wide range of adverse health outcomes, including asthma, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and fetal growth impairment. PAHs are emitted by combustion of organic matter (e.g. fossil fuels, plant biomass) and can accumulate in plant and animal tissues over time. Compared to criteria pollutants, such as O3 or NO2, less is known about PAHs in air inhaled by the general population because PAH monitoring is more technically challenging and costly (in Portland, for example, PAHs are measured by only one monitor)....

Lichen chemistry can be used to estimate concentrations of environmental contaminants, ranging from heavy metals and fertilizers to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, pesticides, herbicides, and flame retardants. We conducted a pilot looking at 26 metals and nutrient anions in 5 widespread lichen species across the upper Midwest, including: As, Al, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, N, Na, Ni, P, Pb, S, Se, Si, Sr, and Zn. FIA crews collected 135 lichen samples from 75 plots across IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, WI and an expert collected 128 additional samples near 11 air...