Mark A. Hatfield

Maine's forests 2008

The second annual inventory of Maines forests was completed in 2008 after more than 3,160 forested plots were measured. Forest land occupies almost 17.7 million acres, which represents 82 percent of the total land area of Maine. The dominant forest-type groups are maple/beech/yellow birch, spruce/fir, white/red/jack pine, and aspen/white birch. Statewide volume equals 25.5 billion ft3, resulting from nearly 590 million ft3 of live-tree volume grown each year. The report also contains additional information on sustainability, biomass, carbon, forest health, land-use change, and timber products. The DVD includes detailed information on forest inventory methods, quality of estimates found, and tables forest statistics.

Indiana's Forests 2008

The second full annual inventory of Indianas forests reports more than 4.75 million acres of forest land with an average volume of more than 2,000 cubic feet per acre. Forest land is dominated by the white oak/red oak/hickory forest type, which occupies nearly a third of the total forest land area. Seventy-six percent of forest land consists of sawtimber, 16 percent contains poletimber, and 8 percent contains sapling/seedlings. The volume of growing stock on timberland has been rising since the 1980s and currently totals more than 8.5 billion cubic feet. The average annual net growth of growing stock on forest land from 2004 to 2008 is approximately 312 million cubic feet per year. This report includes additional information on forest attributes, land use change, carbon, timber products, forest health, and statistics and quality assurance of data collection.

West Virginia's Forests 2008

The first full annual inventory of West Virginias forests reports 12.0 million acres of forest land or 78 percent of the States land area. The area of forest land has changed little since 2000. Of this land, 7.2 million acres (60 percent) are held by family forest owners. The current growing-stock inventory is 25 billion cubic feet--12 percent more than in 2000--and averages 2,136 cubic feet per acre. Yellow-poplar continues to lead in volume followed by white and chestnut oaks. Since 2000, the saw log portion of growing-stock volume has increased by 23 percent to 88 billion board feet. In the latest inventory, net growth exceeded removals for all major species. Detailed information on forest inventory methods and data quality estimates is included in a DVD at the back of this report. Tables of population estimates and a glossary are also included.

Tools for Understanding Landscapes: Combining Large-Scale Surveys to Characterize Change

All landscapes change continuously. Since change is perceived and interpreted through measures of scale, any quantitative analysis of landscapes must identify and describe the spatiotemporal mosaics shaped by large-scale structures and processes. This process is controlled by core influences, or “drivers,” that shape the change and affect the outcome depending on their magnitude and intensity. Our understanding of landscape change and its drivers depends upon many different sources of information of varying quality and breadth – some quantitative, some systematic, others anecdotal or qualitative. In this respect, large-scale surveys and inventories capable of documenting landscape composition, structure, and dynamics, both past and present, can prove to be vital tools for addressing contemporary resource issues. This chapter examines the role of large-scale inventories in identifying landscape change and developing hypotheses about the underlying drivers. Although a number of such sources exist, we shall focus on two from the United States: the Public Land Surveys (1785–1900), and the US Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis program (1930s-present). After defining landscapes and providing definitions and examples of landscape change, we evaluate these surveys with respect to their potential use for ecological analysis, and present examples of their use for ecosystem reconstruction. These longitudinal comparisons are a good first step in understanding the biophysical processes that drive landscape change, but determining the influence of other drivers – social, cultural, or economic – requires other sources of information that are rarely systematic or conclusive. To this end, cautious analysis and conservative conclusions are essential when employing this mix of data sources.

North Dakota's forests 2005

The second annual inventory of North Dakotas forests reports more than 772,000 acres of forest land with an average volume of more than 921 cubic feet per acre. Forest land is dominated by the bur oak forest type, which occupies more than a third of the total forest land area. The poletimber stand-size class represents 39 percent of forest land, followed by sawtimber (32 percent) and saplings/seedlings (28 percent). The volume of growing stock currently totals more than 341 million cubic feet. The average annual net growth of growing stock on forest land from 2006 to 2010 was approximately 6.8 million cubic feet per year. This report includes additional information on forest attributes, land use change, carbon stocks, timber products, forest health, and statistics, methods, and quality assurance of data collection. Detailed information on forest inventory methods and data quality estimates is included in a DVD at the back of this report. Tables of population estimates and a glossary are also included.

West Virginia Forests 2013

The annual inventory of West Virginias forests, completed in 2013, covers nearly 12.2 million acres of forest land with an average volume of more than 2,300 cubic feet per acre. This report is based data collected from 2,808 plots located across the State. Forest land is dominated by the oak/hickory forest-type group, which occupies 74 percent of total forest land area. Seventy-eight percent of forest land area consists of a plurality of large diameter trees, 15 percent contains medium diameter trees, and 7 percent contains small diameter trees. The volume of growing stock on timberland has been rising since the 1950s and currently totals over 25 billion cubic feet. The average annual net growth of growing-stock trees on timberland from 2008 to 2013 is approximately 519 million cubic feet per year. Important species compositional changes include increases in sapling numbers of yellow-poplar, American beech, and noncommercial species, which coincide with decreases in numbers of trees and saplings of oak species. Additional information is presented on forest attributes, land use change, carbon, timber products, species composition, regeneration, and forest health. Detailed information on forest inventory methods, data quality estimates, and summary tables of population estimates, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2737/NRS-RB-105.

Forest resources within the Lake States ceded territories 1980 - 2013

The Lake States ceded territories are the portions of northern Michigan, northeastern Minnesota, and northern Wisconsin that were ceded by tribes of the Ojibwe to the government of the United States of America in the treaties of 1836, 1837, 1842, and 1854. The tribes retain rights to hunt, fish, and gather in the 1837, 1842, and 1854 treaty areas. This report summarizes the results of a series of forest inventories in the region between 1980 and 2013. Inventory results show the region has 30.7 million acres of forest land with forests covering 65.3 percent of the total land area. Forest features reported here focus on the status of six species of trees (sugar maple, black ash, paper birch, northern white-cedar, hophornbeam, and balsam fir) that have special historic and cultural value to the Ojibwe, in addition to the standard reporting of volume, biomass, growth, removals, and mortality of all trees that are typically included in the state-level reports produced by the Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the U.S. Forest Service. Sections of this report also focus on carbon, standing dead trees, invasive plant species, and ground flora.

Forests of Vermont and New Hampshire 2012

The first full remeasurement of the annual inventory of the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire was completed in 2012 and covers nearly 9.5 million acres of forest land, with an average volume of nearly 2,300 cubic feet per acre. The data in this report are based on visits to 1,100 plots located across Vermont and 1,091 plots located across New Hampshire. Forest land is dominated by the maple/beech/birch forest-type group, which occupies 60 percent of total forest land area. Of the forest land, 64 percent consists of large diameter trees, 27 percent contains medium diameter trees, and 9 percent contains small diameter trees. The volume of growing stock on timberland has continued to increase since the 1980s and currently totals nearly 19 billion cubic feet. The average annual net growth of growing stock on timberland from 2007 to 2012 is approximately 380 million cubic feet per year. Important species compositional changes include increases in the number of red maple trees and American beech saplings which coincide with decreases in the number of eastern white pine and sugar maple trees as well as eastern white pine and northern red oak saplings. Additional information is presented on forest attributes, land use change, carbon, timber products, species composition, regeneration, and forest health. Detailed information on forest inventory methods and data quality estimates is included on the DVD accompanying this report. Tables of population estimates and a glossary are also included.

Delaware's Forests 2008

The fifth full inventory of Delawares forests reports an 8 percent decrease in the area of forest land to 352,000 acres, which cover 28 percent of the States land area and has a volume of approximately 2,352 cubic feet per acre. Twenty-one percent of the growing-stock volume is red maple, followed by sweetgum (13 percent), and loblolly pine (12 percent). All species of oaks combined account for 24 percent of the volume. Red maple is the most abundant species in terms of number of trees and the population had been rising through the 1980s and 1990s, but current data show little change since 1999. Oak species and loblolly pine decreased in numbers of trees and volumes. Seventy-three percent of forest land consists of large-diameter trees and 10 percent is in the small-diameter stand-size classes. Average annual growth as a percentage of total growing-stock volume increased from 2.3 to 3.9 percent between 1999 and 2008, while removals and mortality changed little. Additional information on forest attributes, land-use change, carbon, timber products, and forest health is presented in this report. A DVD included in the report provides information on sampling techniques, estimation procedures, a glossary, tables of population estimates, raw data, and a data summarization and reporting tool.

New York's Forests 2007

This report summarizes the first full annual inventory of New Yorks forests, conducted in 2002-2007 by the U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station. New Yorks forests cover 19.0 million acres; 15.9 million acres are classified as timberland and 3.1 million acres as reserved and other forest land. Forest land is dominated by the maple/beech/birch forest type that occupies more than half of the forest land. The volume of growing stock on timberland has been rising and currently totals 29.2 billion cubic feet, enough to produce saw logs equivalent to 87.1 billion board feet. On timberland, average annual growth of growing stock outpaced removals by a ratio of 2.0:1. The net change in growing-stock volume averaged 1.2 percent per year in 1993-2007. The report includes additional information on forest attributes, land use, forest fragmentation, forest ownership, forest health indicators, timber products, and statistics and quality assurance of data collection. Detailed information on forest inventory methods and data quality estimates is included in a DVD at the back of this report. Tables of population estimates and a glossary are also included.