Annual Forest Health Monitoring publications are now more accessible than ever in new, dynamic web pages
The only national summary of forest health undertaken on an annual basis is now more accessible than ever, thanks to fully re-designed web pages of the U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program. Annual summaries of forest health are key to our understanding of forest change over short and long time frames, say the editors and authors of “Forest Health Monitoring: National Status, Trends, and Analysis 2017”—the seventeenth such summary in a series sponsored by and published by the Southern Research Station. The entire series is now available to be browsed, searched and downloaded by year, topic, or chapter, along with highlights and additional resources.
Scientists from across the Forest Service as well as university researchers, state partners, and many other experts contribute to the report. Kevin Potter, who co-edits the series with fellow North Carolina State University scientist and Threat Center cooperator Barb Conkling, describes the state of U.S. forests as “troubling.” “We have a great deal of forest in the United States, and much of it is in good shape,” he says. “At the same time, fires, insects and diseases, and droughts are impacting forest health in many places, and some of those forests may be altered permanently.”
