Forest Health Monitoring: National Status, Trends and Analysis, 2022

Abstract

The annual national report of the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents forest health status and trends from a national or multistate regional perspective using a variety of sources, introduces new techniques for analyzing forest health data, and summarizes results of recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects funded through the FHM national program. In this 22nd edition in a series of annual reports, national survey data are used to identify recent geographic patterns of insect and disease activity. Satellite data are employed to detect geographic patterns of forest fire occurrence. Data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program are employed to detect regional differences in tree mortality. Finescale change in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are used to detect broad patterns of forest disturbance across the conterminous United States. Twenty years of crown dieback trends are presented for the most common tree species and genera in the eastern United States. The new National FIA Lichen Database and the National Lichen Atlas are described to illustrate the breadth of 23 years of lichen indictor data. Four recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects are summarized, addressing forest health concerns at smaller scales.

Titles contained within Forest Health Monitoring: National Status, Trends and Analysis, 2022

• Introduction
• Broad-scale patterns of insect and disease activity across the United States from the National Insect and Disease Survey, 2021
• Broad-scale patterns of forest fire occurrence across the United States and the Caribbean territories, 2021
• Satellite observations of forest disturbances for the conterminous United States during the 2021 growing season
• Tree mortality
• Crown dieback and damages in the Eastern United States
• The National Lichen Atlas: summarizing 23 years of epiphytic lichen community data
• Ash tree decline and mortality in Ohio and the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania
• Detecting changes in forest condition at landscape scales using a Landsat-based harmonic modeling approach
• Laurel wilt spread, vector flight behavior, and impacts in sassafras beyond the Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Plain
• Effects of spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) outbreaks on Rocky Mountain spruce-fir stand characteristics

Keywords

Change detection, disturbance, fire, forest health, forest insects and disease, lichens, tree canopy, tree crown dieback, tree mortality

Citation

Potter, Kevin M.; Conkling, Barbara L., eds. 2023. Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2022. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-273. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 180 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-273.