United States of America

Abstract

ln the United States of America (USA), forest land is defined with respect to four criteria: (1) minimum area of 0.4 ha, (2) minimum crown cover of 10%, (3) minimum width of 36.6 m, and (4) forest use. Total forest land currently exceeds 310 million ha and has generally been increasing since the 1920s, despite a near tripling of the human population. Currently, more than 30% of the country is characterized as forest land with 58% of it in various categories of private ownership. Unlike in many European countries, private forest land owners in the USA have considerable freedom to convert their land from forest to non-forest uses and vice-versa in response to varying commodity prices and other factors. This feature of private land ownership at least partially explains substantially varying local forest areas over time.

Citation

​McRoberts, Ronald E. 2017. United States of America. In: Barreiro, Susana; Schelhaas, Mart-Jan; McRoberts, Ronald E.; Kandler, Gerald. Forest inventory-based projection systems for wood and biomass availability. Dodrecht, Netherlands: Springer: 315-323. Chapter 27. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56201-8_27.