Estimating Caribbean forest site productivity from national forest inventory data
| Authors: | Thomas Brandeis, Andy Hartsell, Belinda Esham, Humfredo Marcano-Vega, Eileen Helmer |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Type: | General Technical Report |
| Station: | Southern Research Station |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-290 |
| Source: | USDA Forest Service |
Abstract
The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) national forest inventory estimates site productivity for every forested plot. In the Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the site class is not estimated because data are not collected on site trees due to the lack of both annual growth rings and growth and yield references, so default values are assigned. We calculated site productivity values by island, forest type and major soil taxon, stand characteristics by these same strata, and explore hurricane impacts. Generally, stand density measures decreased from drier to wetter forest types, while measures of basal, volume and growth increased. There was the suggestion that soils were correlated with volume and growth, with higher values observed on mollisols and vertisols. There were no statistically significant differences in trees per acre, stocking, basal area and volume levels between conditions undamaged and damaged by hurricanes. Gross growth, however, was lower on hurricane damaged plots. We determined that calculated values can be used to populate site class for many plots, and for those that have not reached full stocking, opportunities exist for the development of stand growth models, perhaps by forest type and not for individual islands.