Treesearch

Family forest ownerships are classified in federal income tax law as either personal use, investment, or trade or business, and this classification determines the tax rates, deductions, credits, and filing requirements that apply. Tax classification, therefore, has implications for landowners’ overall profit potential and the economic sustainability of forest management. However, the relative proportion of family forest owners in each tax classification has never been estimated before, though many studies have looked at the typologies of family forest owners based on their forest management...

The national Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study was initiated more than two decades ago with the goal of evaluating the ecological impacts of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire in different ecosystems across the United States. Since then, 4 of the original 12 sites remain active in managing and monitoring the original FFS study which provides a unique opportunity to look at the long-term effects of these treatments in different regions. These sites include California (Blodgett Forest Research Station), Montana (Lubrecht Experimental Forest), North Carolina (Green River Game Land),...

State preferential forest property tax programs (PFPTP) are commonly used to incentivize landowners to keep their land in a forested condition. For those PFPTPs that offer multiple enrollment periods, an important decision landowners face is the length of time they commit their land to the program, especially if the program's financial benefits are linked to the length of time enrolled. This study explores what factors influence the program length commitment decisions forest landowners make when choosing to participate in a PFPTP that offers multiple commitment lengths and associated...

Evaluation Monitoring (EM) projects are funded by the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) Program annually and are intended to determine the extent, severity, and causes of changes in forest health identified through Detection Monitoring. The EM project proposals are submitted, reviewed, and selected through a process established by the FHM Management Team. Each year, the FHM Management Team reviews the EM proposal guidelines, application instructions, and priorities, culminating in updated proposal instructions and guidelines, new project proposal form, and progress and final reporting...

The objectives of this study were (1) to understand the increasing flowering dogwood mortality and population decline in the Southeastern United States over the past few decades; (2) to identify the predisposing, inciting, and contributing factors that could be leading to a decline complex; and (3) to investigate interactions between the identified factors based on Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data and site-specific field survey observations. Findings from the study could facilitate future development of flowering dogwood decline risk assessment tools to assist land managers with...

This paper quantifies how softwood lumber tariffs propagate through the U.S. economy to affect homebuyers’ monthly mortgage payments, comparing this channel to direct mortgage rate changes. Using an integrated Armington-Leontief framework with 2022 IMPLAN data, we trace a tariff shock on Canadian softwood lumber into residential construction costs and mortgage payments. For a baseline $420,000 home with a typical principal-and-interest payment of about $2,190, a 25 % tariff raises monthly payments by $26-$41 (1.2 %–1.9 %), depending on market flexibility. In contrast, a one percentage...

It is becoming increasingly critical for societies to understand how costs and benefits associated with natural disasters and their mitigation activities are allocated across economic actors. Although higher rates of wildfire hazard mitigation would be expected to increase jobs in the forestry and logging sector, scientific examination of the magnitude of such impacts has been scarce. This research helps to close this research gap by evaluating how labor markets in Western U.S. counties have responded to the mechanical wildfire hazardous fuel reduction treatments carried out on national...

The marginal cost of carbon emission reduction is a crucial metric for assessing the economic and environmental implications of climate change mitigation policies. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the marginal cost of carbon emissions reductions across 546 sectors of the U.S. economy, employing a structural decomposition analysis and a partial hypothetical extraction method. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in the marginal abatement costs across sectors, with estimates ranging from $27.52 to $16,899 per ton of CO2 emission averted. The distribution of marginal...

This indicator evaluates the import and export value of nonwood forest products (NWFPs) in the United States. The United Nations has defined NWFPs as “forest products [that] consist of goods of biological origin other than wood, derived from forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests” (FAO 1999). NWFPs constitute a subset of nonconvertible products (i.e., products that are not convertible to units of measure relative to timber) grown in forests. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service categorizes NWFPs in the following groups, consistent with the United Nations...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Louisiana. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...