Forests of western Oregon: an overview.

Abstract

This publication provides highlights of forest inventories and surveys from 1993 to 2000. It presents both traditional and nontraditional information about western Oregon’s forests.The amount of forest land in western Oregon has changed little since the earliest inventory in 1930. About 80 percent of western Oregon is forested. Fifty tree species were tallied in forest inventories during the 1990s, with Douglas-fir the predominant species in all ecological units in western Oregon. About 52 percent of western Oregon forest land is managed by the Forest Service, BLM, and other federal agencies; about 41 percent is privately owned; and the remaining 7 percent is managed by the Oregon Department of Forestry and other nonfederal public agencies. Growth of trees in western Oregon exceeds the amount removed by harvest and mortality. One-third of inventory plots on nonfederal lands have one or more noxious weeds. Down wood and snags are important forest components and were tallied in these last inventories. Western spruce budworm, bark beetles, root diseases, dwarf mistletoes, and Swiss needle cast have affected many acres of forest land in western Oregon from 1987 to 2000. Lichens, as indicators of air pollution, climate, and forest age and structure, have been tallied on a portion of western Oregon inventory plots beginning in 1998. Monitoring for ozone injury on several sensitive forest species also was begun in 1998; no ozone injury has been detected in western Oregon.

Citation

Campbell, Sally; Azuma, Dave; Weyermann, Dale. 2002. Forests of western Oregon: an overview. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-525. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 27 p