New Information about U.S. Forest Resources Supports Long-term Assessment and Planning
Every five years, the U.S. Forest Service updates the Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment, a report on the status of forest resources across the nation. To support the 2015 update, Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists coordinated a technical document describing recent trends in forest area, growth, and mortality, as well as timber product outputs and other activities. Eastern Threat Center research ecologist Kurt Riitters contributed maps and information about forest fragmentation to the Forest Atlas of the United States, a source used by the SRS scientists who developed the technical document. As part of the larger RPA Assessment effort, Riitters is responsible for reporting current landscape patterns and forest fragmentation based on data from the National Land Cover Database and Forest Inventory and Analysis plots in addition to the status of protected area designations of all lands in the United States. The 2015 RPA Assessment is expected to be released in early 2016. Read more in CompassLive…
