Criteria and Indicators state of the process Criterion 2

Forest Inventory and AnalysisThe Nation’s Forest Census

Criteria and Indicatorsstate of the process

Criterion 2fia

The Nation’s Forest Census

presented by

W. Brad SmithAssociate National Program Manager, FIA


Identifying Research Needs

Montreal Process Indicator

10 Area of forest and timberland v v v v v v = yes

11 Merchantable and nonmerchantable volume

v v v v v ? = weak or uncertain

12 Area and volume in plantations

v v v v v

13 Annual removals for products vs. sustainable volume

v v v v? v

14 Removals of nontimber products vs. sustainable levels

v ? ? ? ?

Benchmarks: Are there standards or thresholds for comparison?

Conceptual basis: Is the indicator based on a well understood and generally accepted conceptual model?Reliable: Has the indicator been effectively deployed before? Is there an empirical basis for the indicator?

Robust: Is the indicator sensitive to important changes?

Interpretable: Does a change in the indicator have a clear interpretation?


on U.S. forests from local to global

Local Sub-State region State Regional/National

Global Internationalmulti-process

National sector C&INational multi-sector

Main information flowFeedback loop

FIA, the keystone of Criterion 2, has reported


Make no mistake ….

Criterion 2 is about commodities, timber and nontimber

However, looking holistically…

Indicators 1-4 in Criterion 1 cover area of all forest by type and successional stage and indicators 7 and 9 cover species abundance and change in forests

Indicator 26 in Criterion 5 covers biomass in forests by type [and I would suggest some parallelism with Criterion 1]


In the 2003 National Report on Sustainable Forests for Criterion 2:

Indicators 2, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 31


What are we doing about Criterion 2 gaps?

Annualized forest inventory is progressing

Implementation in 1999 Implementation in 2005

Am. Samoa

Guam

Palau

Puerto Rico

Virgin Is.

NMI

FSM

RMI

Islands


And, coming soon to a website near you:

Annual estimates of area, growth, removals and mortality for all forest land, current and historic

Annual estimates of volume and biomass on all forest land

Annual updates on forest ownership study results

Annual validation data for spatial tools based on remote sensing [15-20,000 plots per year]


Indicator 14 Nontimber forest products

What are they, generally…. Food Medicinals Florals Oils and resins Cultural (arts and crafts) Game and hides


FIA southern NTFP pilot study

Identify Markets Products Distribution

Then Test protocols and measures Estimate value

The study is ongoing


Some reported data are still difficult to interpretor lack trends

North

South

West

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1-19 20-39 40-59 60-79 80-99 100-119

120-139

140-159

160-199

200-240

240-279

280-319

320-399

400+

Stand-age Class (years)

Mill

ion a

cre

s

Indicator 2

Forest age class data, 2002


We need to explore surrogates for age-class like average stand diameter?

Source: Forest Resources of the United States, 2002

The optimal mix of forests of different average size trees is difficult to define and depends greatly on management objectives. Clearly, the effects of human activity and natural events paint different pictures in different regions.

Indicators 2 & 4


If we had known then….

FIA would have cataloged area by forest by type and average diameter class (stand-size class) jointly

FIA did it separately for 50 years and it is difficult to recover from pre-digital data.

We have data from about 1980 on.


Fusing field and remote sensing data will offer new opportunities for displaying patterns like ownership


Or harvesting


Sometimes we pieced seemingly disparate data together to derive meaningful trend information:

Regional forest trends in the 48 States, 1760-2000

1940- pres. FIA Field Inventory Reports

1900 – 1930 Forest Service report estimates prior to FIA field inventories.

1850 – 1890 Based on Bureau of the Census land clearing statistics.

1760 – 1840 Based on estimates of forest clearing proportional to population growth.

Basis for chart data:

Mil

lio

n a

cres

Interior WestNorth

Pacific Coast

South

-

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

1760

1780

1800

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000 Indicators 2 & 4


But many questions remain


Like number of hardwood trees in the U.S. by major species, 1963-2002

Indicator 9 (Only shows number of trees 5-inches dbh and larger)

Even when we have trends, what do they mean?


Top 10 species in U.S. forests

Top 10 species by number of trees [1" dbh and larger] in 2002

Number Percent of

Common name Genus Species of trees all trees

Red Maple Acer rubrum 21,834,748,401 7.6%

Loblolly Pine Pinus taeda 19,133,975,069 6.6%

Sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua 13,153,930,093 4.6%

Douglas-Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii 9,962,056,987 3.5%

Quaking Aspen Populus tremuloides 9,065,591,863 3.2%

Sugar Maple Acer saccharum 8,993,035,576 3.1%

Balsam Fir Abies balsamea 8,918,466,178 3.1%

Flowering Dogwood Cornus florida 8,608,168,855 3.0%

Lodgepole Pine Pinus contorta 7,078,252,791 2.5%

White Oak Quercus alba 5,412,297,254 1.9%

Top 10 species by live volume in 2002

Volume in Percent of

Common name Genus Species cubic feet all volume

Douglas-Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii 114,757,096,586 12.8%

Loblolly Pine Pinus taeda 59,017,744,741 6.6%

Ponderosa Pine Pinus ponderosa 36,468,201,905 4.1%

Red Maple Acer rubrum 35,335,862,859 3.9%

Western Hemlock Tsuga heterophylla 31,976,022,390 3.6%

Lodgepole Pine Pinus contorta 28,724,432,949 3.2%

White Oak Quercus alba 28,653,130,630 3.2%

Sugar Maple Acer saccharum 23,871,411,502 2.7%

Yellow-Poplar Liriodendron tulipifera 23,203,250,041 2.6%

Northern Red Oak Quercus rubra 21,303,062,900 2.4%

Indicator 9

What’s best:Is tree biodiversity best measured by volume or number of trees?


Is an indicator best measured in:

Growth

Mortality

Removals

0

5

10

15

20

25

1953 1963 1977 1987 1997 2002

Bill

ion

cu

bic

fee

t

Indicator 13

Growth

Mortality

Removals

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

1953 1963 1977 1987 1997 2002

Per

cen

t o

f to

tal l

ive

volu

me

< absolute terms

-or - relative terms >


Does ownership matter?

As public policy has shifted, removals have moved dramatically from public land in the West to private land in the East in the last 15 years.

Indicator 13


?

And, the answer for your favorite indicator is…

Criteria and Indicators state of the process Criterion 2

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