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Abstract
In 2019, Maine’s forest products industry had a total economic impact of $8.1 billion. The industry employed over 31,000 people, with $1.7 billion in labor income. Ensuring a sustained inventory is the first link in the supply chain that helps the forest sector thrive—namely, that mills stay open, and jobs remain intact. Recognizing that the forest has potential to produce more timber sustainably may allow the industry to grow. On the other hand, acknowledging the limitations of Maine’s forests will hopefully reduce the risk of creating overcapacity in Maine’s forest products sector. Monitoring and projecting harvest, mortality and the resultant distribution of timber size classes, forest types or species, and other forest conditions is important, as these metrics serve as proxies for overall forest health” (MFS 2022, pp. 2-3). The Maine Forest Service (MFS) periodically conducts Timber Supply Analyses as directed by statute: (i.e., “…project future timber supply using forest models based on growth, harvest, and other dynamic factors affecting the forest.” (12 M.R.S. §8877-A (3))). On-going work at MFS uses Woodstock, an optimization modeling platform capable of improving decisions about resource management. One of the key inputs in Woodstock are GY curves which are commonly developed using FVS or some other GY model. To date, efforts have focused mostly on using FVS-ACD (Weiskittel et. al. 2017) and The Open Stands Model (Hennigar, 2019). Here we project Maine’s forests using FIA2FVS tables as input into FVS-NE; compare modeled growth rates to FIA growth rates; and consider approaches for verifying and calibrating FVS for statewide and other modeling efforts.
Parent Publication
Keywords
forest management,
forest planning,
growth and yield,
vegetation dynamics,
habitat modeling,
carbon inventory,
landscape dynamics,
fire,
fuels,
climate change,
economics,
tree-rings
Citation
Frank, Jereme; Castle, Mark. 2024. Using FIA data and GY models for state-wide forest projections. In: Shaw, John D; Battaglia, Mike A.; Castle, Mark, [comps.]. Sixth Forest Vegetation Simulator Conference; 2023 March 7-9; Fort Collins, CO. Proceedings RMRS-P-81. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 66-70.
