Comprehensive Regional Resource Assessments and Multipurpose Uses of Forest Inventory and Analysis Data, 1976 to 2001: a Review
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United States Department of Comprehensive Regional Resource Agriculture Forest Service Assessments and Multipurpose Uses of Forest Inventory and Analysis Data, 1976 to 2001: A Review Southern Research Station General Technical Victor A. Rudis Report SRS–70 The Author Victor A. Rudis, Research Forester, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station, 201 Lincoln Green, Starkville, MS 39759. Cover: Depending upon one’s disciplinary perspective, the image on the cover may depict forest products, services, or intangible values. Inventoried elements in the scene could include information about air quality, human uses, tree volume, the owner’s intentions, the forest’s proximity to water, and temporal trends, with some data having multipurpose uses in a comprehensive forest resource assessment. For more information regarding the FIA Program, contact the following: National Rocky Mountain FIA National Program Leader Program Manager, FIA USDA Forest Service, 1NW USDA Forest Service 201 14th St., SW Rocky Mountain Research Station Washington, DC 20090-6090 507 25th St. Ogden, UT 84401 Northeast Program Manager, FIA Pacific Northwest (includes Alaska, Hawaii, USDA Forest Service and Pacific territories) Northeastern Research Station Program Manager, FIA 11 Campus Blvd., Suite 200 USDA Forest Service Newtown Square, PA 19073 Pacific Northwest Research Station 620 SW Main, Suite 400 North Central Portland, OR 98205 Program Manager, FIA USDA Forest Service Statistical Techniques North Central Research Station Project Leader, FIA 1992 Folwell Ave. USDA Forest Service St. Paul, MN 55108 Rocky Mountain Research Station 2150 Centre Ave., Bldg. A South (includes Puerto Rico and Fort Collins, CO 80526-1891 Atlantic territories) Project Leader, FIA Or visit the FIA Web site at: USDA Forest Service http://www.fia.fs.fed.us Southern Research Station 4700 Old Kingston Pike Knoxville, TN 37919 October 2003 Southern Research Station P.O. Box 2680 Asheville, NC 28802 Table of Contents Page Introduction . 1 Background . 4 Problem and Objectives . 5 Methods . 6 Results and Synthesis . 7 A Growing and Diversifying User Audience . 8 Early Progress . 10 Approaches to Comprehensive Assessments . 13 Progress Toward Multipurpose Utility . 19 Synthesis . 20 Acknowledgments . 21 Literature Cited . 21 Appendix . 33 References by Selected Subjects . 33 Air pollution . 33 Biomass . 34 Dead wood . 38 Esthetics . 40 Geographic context . 42 Nearby nonforest influences . 54 Owner attitudes . 60 Range . 72 Recreation opportunity and remote and roadless areas . 74 Tropical inventories . 79 Water quality . 81 Vegetative habitat typing . 89 Wildlife . 90 Other FIA-Associated Literature . 98 Web Sites with FIA-Associated Data Uses . 128 i ii Comprehensive Regional Resource Assessments and Multipurpose Uses of Forest Inventory and Analysis Data, 1976 to 2001: A Review Victor A. Rudis Abstract Traditional timber-oriented inventories no longer are sufficient to assess timber supplies or monitor forest Reported is a compilation of over 1,400 literature citations and a review of resources (Wikstrom and Alston 1985). There is selected subjects that constitute an integrated knowledge base for widespread perception that current efforts and comprehensive forest resource assessments with regional, field sample- based forest inventory data. The focus of the report is on nontraditional capabilities for monitoring America’s forest resources are and novel technical uses tied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest failing to meet increasingly complex and large-scale Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) field surveys published or in needs (Peterson and others 1999). The expanding role of press between 1976 and July 2001. Briefly noted are pioneering studies forests and public involvement in forestry today elicit that link FIA data with air pollution, biomass, dead wood, esthetics, geographic context (geographic information systems and satellite remote differing concerns, measurement priorities, and sensing), nearby nonforest influences (operability, roads), owner attitudes, sometimes opposing opinions about land use, forest range (agroforestry and livestock use), recreation, tropical inventories, resources, and the attributes to be measured. water quality (soils and hydrology), vegetative habitat typing, and wildlife. All known M.S. theses and Ph.D. dissertations associated with FIA data since 1976 are included, regardless of subject matter. Also Inventories of standing timber are common benchmarks incorporated are citations of collected works concerning integrated by which many forest industries and natural resource assessments and multidisciplinary surveys and representative citations agencies determine forest-resource supplies, but an associated with economics, global climate change, remote sensing, underlying assumption is that timber inventory data sampling designs, tropical forest resources, and traditional timber resource assessments. The literature review suggests assessments are include all of the needed information. That this “comprehensive” for issues in selected regions and chosen resources. assumption is wrong is illustrated by the lack of mature- Multidiscipline involvement, multipurpose uses of nontraditional data, tree harvests near urban areas on nonindustrial private and analysis of resources other than timber are variable. Nontraditional land and court injunctions against timber sales on measurements and models, with some exceptions, have been provincially, National Forest System land. rather than nationally, applicable and not well coordinated among regions. Recommended are ways to accelerate progress toward comprehensive assessments and cost-effective multipurpose uses. Measurement of forest resources is not just an inventory of a forest’s biological characteristics, but the evaluation Keywords: Bibliography, ecological inventories, forest inventory, hydrology, interdisciplinary studies, integrated assessments, monitoring, of their value relative to all of society’s needs. Scientific natural resource planning, range, recreation, timber, water, wildlife measurement of timber and other forest products is more habitat. precise than measurement of the less tangible values and services that forests provide. Comprehensive, multidis- ciplinary assessments that address contemporary forest resource issues require useful analyses of forest inventory data. Introduction To be comprehensive, regional forest-resource The scope of land-management-planning issues has inventories must not only account for forest land use and widened and the process of measuring and assessing timber production, but also for land and water (hereafter forest resources has grown increasingly complex. earth) cover, other land uses, other resources, and their 1 interactions. Long-term and global planning must also Analysis (FIA) program as an example. This science- consider the effects of acid deposition, carbon based, broad-region survey program, one of the oldest of sequestration, and climate change; and must anticipate its kind still used, began in the 1930s in response to changes in the role of forests as producers of products, concerns about dwindling timber supplies on private land services, and intangible values. Such assessments would in the United States. Responsibility for assessing current seem to require the impossible—consideration of all conditions and trends in both public and private forests associated resources and the social, spatial, and temporal rests with the USDA FS; and the FIA program is its dynamics taking place among them. Interdisciplinary research-based tool. Scientific, sample-based inventories inventories are frontiers in which multidisciplinary began with the passage of the McSweeney-McNary approaches advance towards comprehensive assessment. Forest Research Act of 1928. Later, passage of the Forest However, an integrated inventory may not be possible for and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of all resources (Bastedo and Theberge 1983). Assessments 1974 (P.L. 93-378 [88 Stat. 476]) and associated laws in must at least incorporate scientific data and analyses 1978 (P.L. 95-307 [92 Stat. 353]) shifted inventory and from other disciplinary perspectives—often assembled monitoring efforts of the USDA FS from documenting with dissimilar research techniques or collected at very commodity outputs towards a more comprehensive different levels of precision. assessment of forest resources that also included water, range, recreation, timber, and wildlife values. The Forest A standard system for collecting, storing, and analyzing Ecosystem and Atmospheric Pollution Research Act of such information commonly is required, but usually is 1988 added monitoring to account for ecological effects lacking (Jensen and others 1999). Many scientists and associated with air pollution. Cooperative agreements assessment teams familiar with studies within their own with eastern national forests and later legislation disciplines often ignore the work of other disciplines. (Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Interdisciplinary analysis is uncommon because the Reform Act of 1998) broadened the USDA FS FIA interdisciplinary infrastructure—funding, information, program to include status-and-health surveys on all and social networks—may not always exist. Rarely are public land, including western national forests and there agencies, journals, or organized stakeholders, much designated wilderness areas. less scientific societies, devoted to the task. Interdisciplinary assessments often are plagued by the Owing to differing resources and stakeholders, there is inordinate amount of time required to communicate some regional variation in the manuals of procedures for among authors with differing disciplinary perspectives field data.