Evaluating the Health of the Nation’s Forests
Annual reports describing the health of the nation’s forests provide forest managers, scientists, and decision makers with current and relevant information about environmental stresses and land management issues impacting forest resources. With support from Forest Service Forest Health Protection and the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, an ongoing cooperative arrangement between the Eastern Threat Center and North Carolina State University (NCSU) enables Center scientists to collaborate with NCSU researchers and Forest Health Specialists to produce the annual reports. Each report synthesizes data from a variety of sources to provide an overview of forest health at regional to national reporting scales. Individual chapters, contributed by specialists nationwide, address a wide variety of forest health topics such as tree mortality, drought, 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 special investigations funded by Forest Service Forest Health Protection to provide more detailed information about specific forest health problems and threats. Because they are national in scope and consistent over time, the reports are a guide to forest health trends and provide quantitative baselines for detecting forest health changes over time.
Right: Annual reports describing the health of the nation’s forests serve as a guide to forest health trends and provide quantitative baselines for detecting forest health changes over time.
References:
Potter, K.M.; Conkling, B.L., eds. 2015. Forest Health Monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2014. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-209. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 190 p.
Additional annual forest health monitoring reports (2001-2013)
Forest Service Partners/Collaborators: Forest Health Protection; Forest Inventory and Analysis
External Partners/Collaborators: North Carolina State University
Contact: Kurt Riitters, Barb Conkling, and Kevin Potter
