Taking stock of old growth: The first nationally consistent inventory method using FIA data

Abstract

On Earth Day, 2022, the White House issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to inventory the mature and old-growth forests on Federal lands, to complete this inventory within a year of the order, and to make it available to the public. This order extended from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (i.e., the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2021), which invested $5.5 billion over 5 years to address some of the USDA Forest Service’s most pressing issues, including the increased risk of wildland fire, ecosystem restoration, and the conservation of old-growth forests. To comply with the order and complete this inventory, Rocky Mountain Research Station scientist Kristen Pelz and other Forest Service researchers and collaborators developed an approach to consistently estimate the extent of these forests using National Forest System (NFS) regional old-growth definitions. They then used this approach to estimate the extent of old-growth forests in the United States using already-available data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program.

Citation

Miller, Sue; Pelz, Kristen; Gray, Andy. 2024. Taking stock of old growth: The first nationally consistent inventory method using FIA data. Science You Can Use (in 5 Minutes), March 2024. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 2 p.