Biology, ecology, and economics at play: land use and land cover changes in the 21st century.

Abstract

In making choices about how to manage the country’s wealth of forest land, stakeholders including U.S. taxpayers—have many choices, all of them with ripple effects that extend far beyond the immediate stands of trees. In the Pacific Northwest, as elsewhere, biophysical, ecological, and socioeconomic factors combine to influence the areas of forest cover types and their fragmentation. How do we take all these factors into account as we make sustainable natural resource management decisions? Past studies have tended to view only subsets of the whole set of factors and also have tended to examine changes in land use at relatively small scales. Outcomes over large geographic areas, including privately owned land, have not been closely monitored. Clearly, large-scale and interrelated studies are needed to address net changes in forest cover types that result from natural and human-caused forces. The Resources Planning Act’s 2000 assessment provides this type of large-scale, cross-sectoral study; scientists from the Pacific Northwest Research Station contributed to the findings about land use changes and their complex interactions across the country. The renewable resource assessments analyze present and anticipated uses of, demand for, and supply of the renewable resources, with consideration of the international resource situation and an emphasis of pertinent supply, demand, and price relationship trends. Land managers and policy analysts can now use the information from the historical analysis and associated projections of forest cover changes in planning for wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration to address global climate change, timber supply, and other goods and services from our forests.

Citation

Duncan, Sally. 2003. Biology, ecology, and economics at play: land use and land cover changes in the 21st century. Science Findings 55. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 5 p