Northern Forest Futures Project

Northern Forest Futures Project

The Northern Forest Futures Project is a window on tomorrow’s forests, revealing how today’s trends and choices can change the future landscape of the Northeast and Midwest.  Using the latest inventory data and scientific projections, the Northern Forest Futures Project helps visualize what’s here today and what to expect tomorrow. Ultimately, this project informs decision-making about the sustainable management of public and private forests in the northern United States.

What about Northern Forests

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Future Forests of the Northern United States

The culminating publication of the Northern Forest Futures Project, Future forests of the northern United States, is now available.

This report draws on data from numerous sources to analyze 13 scenarios that consider future forest change in response to assumptions about land-use change, economic change, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, forest growth, forest harvest, and other factors.

Future Conditions

The Future Conditions section describes future forest projections and trends for the 20 Northern States through selected characteristics associated with forest sustainability. The chosen characteristics come from the internationally recognized Montréal Process Working Group on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests, a set of 64 indicators within seven broad criteria for sustainability. To these, we have added an eighth criterion focused on the urban and community forests in the northern United States.

Data Dashboard for Northern Forests

Compare visualizations for various metrics and forest facts for the twenty Northern states.

Access the Northern Forest Futures Projections Dashboard

Compare the human population and acres of forest over time for the Northern states