Treesearch

Forest ecosystems have the ability to reduce the effects of climate change through the sequestration of carbon (C) (Pan et al. 2011) as well as contribute to net emissions through disturbance events such as wildfires and widespread tree mortality (Kurz et al. 2008). A conceptual framework for assessing climate-change risks to forest ecosystem C stocks facilitates efficient allocation of efforts to monitor and mitigate climate-change effects, and the U.S. National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) of forest C stocks (Heath et al. 2011) may be used as a basis for development of a climate...

The forest industry within the northern region of the United States has demonstrated a notable decline in terms of employment, number of mills, wood consumption, and forest harvests since 2000--a downturn exacerbated by the "Great Recession" of 2007-2009. Longer term industrial decline (since 2000) has been evidenced by reductions in secondary product (e.g., furniture) and print paper manufacturing, which can be attributed to the lack of global competitiveness of U.S. wages and ascent of electronic media. In contrast, more recent (since 2008), yet sharper declines can be found in industries...

Wood product prices and production fell dramatically in 2009 as a severe recession and massive decline in U.S. housing led to a global financial crisis. In 2009 and 2010, virtually every major western mill suffered curtailments and 30 large mills closed permanently. Sales value of wood and paper products in the West dropped from $49 billion in 2005 to $34 billion in 2009. Employment declined by 71,000 workers and lumber production fell by almost 50 percent from 2005 to 2009. Capacity utilization at sawmills and other timber-using facilities in the West fell from more than 80 percent in...

The National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) is conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) Program as the social complement to its biophysical inventory. The NWOS is aimed at understanding who owns the forests of the United States, why they own it, what they have done with it in the past, and what they plan to do with it in the future. On a recurring basis, self-administered surveys are sent to randomly selected private forest owners from across the U.S. The sample points correspond with plot center of the FIA Phase 2 field plots. For the first time, in 2011, the...

Applied research on family forest owners ensures that we understand who they are, what they do, and why they do it. This information enables us to develop policy, management, and outreach approaches that can optimize the social, economic, cultural, and environmental benefits of private forests at the landowner, community, and national levels. The three principal scientific sources of information are National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) data, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data, and individual research efforts focused on specific geographical areas. NWOS and FIA data aim to be...

Previous research has suggested that heirs to family forest land may sell timber and/or land in order to pay state and/or federal estate taxes, which could result in land use conversion or other adverse ecological impacts. We estimated the number of Minnesota family forest landowners and the associated acreage that could be subject to estate taxes at various exemption levels. Using 2011 Minnesota forest land sale transactional data we calculated the minimum acreage that would trigger the federal estate tax at different hypothetical tax exemption levels and estate compositions (percent of...

The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, has been designated by executive order as a national treasure. There is much interest in monitoring the status and trends in forest area within the bay, especially since maintaining forest cover is key to bay restoration efforts. The Chesapeake Bay Land Cover Data Series (CBLCD), a Landsat-based, multi-temporal change detection raster geographic information system (GIS) product was developed by the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) to monitor land cover change in the bay. The objective of this study was to assess relationships...

Alaskan forests cover one-third of the state’s 52 million ha of land (Parson et al. 2001), and are regionally and globally significant. Ninety percent of Alaskan forests are classified as boreal, representing 4 percent of the world’s boreal forests, and are located throughout interior and south-central Alaska (fig. A1-1). The remaining 10 percent of Alaskan forests are classified as coastal-temperate, representing 19 percent of the world’s coastal-temperate forests (National Synthesis Assessment Team 2003), and are located in southeast Alaska (fig. A1-1). Regional changes in the disturbance...

Alaskan forests cover one-third of the state’s 52 million ha of land (Parson et al. 2001), and are regionally and globally significant. Ninety percent of Alaskan forests are classified as boreal, representing 4 percent of the world’s boreal forests, and are located throughout interior and south-central Alaska (fig. A1-1). The remaining 10 percent of Alaskan forests are classified as coastal-temperate, representing 19 percent of the world’s coastal-temperate forests (National Synthesis Assessment Team 2003), and are located in southeast Alaska (fig. A1-1). Regional changes in the disturbance...

Alaskan forests cover one-third of the state’s 52 million ha of land (Parson et al. 2001), and are regionally and globally significant. Ninety percent of Alaskan forests are classified as boreal, representing 4 percent of the world’s boreal forests, and are located throughout interior and south-central Alaska (fig. A1-1). The remaining 10 percent of Alaskan forests are classified as coastal-temperate, representing 19 percent of the world’s coastal-temperate forests (National Synthesis Assessment Team 2003), and are located in southeast Alaska (fig. A1-1). Regional changes in the disturbance...