2011 Partnership Highlights
State of the Nation’s Forests Revealed
University collaboration produces annual reports to heighten forest health awareness
Annual reports describing the health of the nation’s forests provide forest managers, scientists, and decision makers with current and relevant information about issues impacting forest resources. An ongoing cooperative arrangement between EFETAC and North Carolina State University (NCSU) enables Center scientists and NCSU researchers to collaboratively produce the annual reports that synthesize data from a variety of sources to provide an overview of forest health at regional to national reporting scales. Individual chapters, contributed by specialists nation-wide, address a wide variety of forest health topics such as tree mortality, tree crown conditions, geographic hotspots of insect and disease occurrences, large-scale patterns of wildland fire, forest fragmentation, and invasive plants. The annual reports also include a summary of targeted investigations funded by Forest Service Forest Health Protection which provide more detailed information about specific forest health anomalies and threats. The reports serve as a useful guide to forest health trends that may require further monitoring and research.
Contact: Kurt Riitters, research ecologist, (919) 549-4015, kurt.h.riitters@usda.gov
