Treesearch

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in New Jersey. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

Spanish juniper, Juniperus thurifera L, forests are typically managed as uneven-aged forests in the Iberian range, which requires information about site index (SI) classes and diameter at breast height (dbh) distributions. The objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the performance of remote sensing models using multitemporal airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, Landsat metrics of state and change along with topographic, geographic and climatic predictors for the prediction of SI classes and diameter distributions. The best model for SI classes was a logistic model that showed an...

In 2020, six wildfires burned more than 1 million acres over the Labor Day weekend in Oregon. Jeremy Fried, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, saw an opportunity to study how these wind-driven megafires affected forest structure and carbon storage, and how forest structure before the fires may have influenced fire severity.With research fellows Sebastian Busby and Angela Klock, Fried developed a model that estimated wind speed when wildfire entered forest plots previously inventoried through the national Forest Inventory and Analysis...

Background: The reintroduction of fire, with the goal of reducing fuels and restoring forest resilience, is a critical management practice in dry conifer forests of the western United States. In dry forest landscapes, invasion by non-native annual grasses could complicate restoration goals if fire exacerbates invasion and associated impacts, particularly in areas with low tree cover and in adjacent open areas. Although annual grasses are becoming increasingly pervasive across the West, little is known about how species differ in their response to burning, especially in historically...

Forest ecosystems provide essential services such as timber, water regulation, biodiversity, and recreation, yet they are increasingly influenced by the interplay between climate and socioeconomic forces. This study synthesizes findings from the 2020 Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment to evaluate how these factors affect historical trends and future projections of U.S. forest conditions and services. Results show that total forest area is projected to decline slightly by 2070, mainly due to conversion to developed land, with the greatest losses occurring in the South. While socioeconom...

Restoration of dry forest landscapes of the Pacific Northwest often involves the removal of some closed-canopy forest that has expanded due to fire exclusion, but this can conflict with species conservation when species require closed-canopy forest as part of their habitat. Fire refugia—areas within fire perimeters that burn less severely or frequently—might provide a solution to this conflict. We used a species-specific approach to understanding fire refugia for northern spotted owls to model the post-fire persistence of nesting and roosting (NR) forest in the frequent fire landscapes of...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in New Hampshire. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining...

As wildfires in the western US grow in both size and intensity, forest policymakers and managers seek effective ways to mitigate and adapt to increasing wildfire risk. In some regions, such as the western Pacific Northwest, where wildfires historically burned infrequently, climate change and housing development appear to be altering wildfire regimes while bringing greater numbers of people living in greater proximity to potentially more fire-prone forests. Developing effective strategies for family forest owners to adapt to the wildfire regimes of the future will depend on designing...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Pennsylvania. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining...

The National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) was developed in part to understand why private landowners—individuals, families, corporations, and other organizations – own forest land and what benefits and value that land provides. From the NWOS, we know that family forests provide many elements that forestry experts have traditionally emphasized—products such as wood and non-timber forest products and services such as recreation. However, the NWOS has also highlighted that these are not the primary ownership objectives for many family forest owners (FFOs), with other objectives such as...