2013 Research Highlights
How Fragmented are the Nation’s Forests?
Research assists in management and conservation decision making
The spatial patterns of forest, grass, and shrub land cover were assessed as part of the USDA Forest Service 2010 Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment, using the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset. Using protocols developed by an Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center scientist, new landcover maps from 2006 are being used to update the assessment of overall forest fragmentation and the loss of forest interior conditions from 2001 to 2006, within ecological sections of the conterminous United States. The information is being combined with additional field plot data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program to expand the comparative assessment of forest fragmentation to 125 major forest types. A post-doctoral researcher from North Carolina State University was brought into the project this year to develop methods to forecast future fragmentation under alternate climate scenarios in the 2020 RPA Assessment.
Right: Photo by Larry Korhnak, Interfacesouth.org
Forest Service Partners/Collaborators: R&D Quantitative Sciences; R&D Forest Inventory and Analysis.
External Partners/Collaborators: North Carolina State University
Contact: Kurt Riitters, Eastern Threat Center research ecologist, (919) 549-4015, kurt.h.riitters@usda.gov
