Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2020

Abstract

The annual national report of the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents forest health status and trends from a national or multi-State regional perspective using a variety of sources, introduces new techniques for analyzing forest health data, and summarizes results of recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects funded through the FHM national program. In this 20th edition in a series of annual reports, national survey data are used to identify recent geographic patterns of insect and disease activity. Satellite data are employed to detect geographic patterns of forest fire occurrence. Recent drought and moisture surplus conditions are compared across the conterminous United States. Data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program are employed to detect regional differences in tree mortality. Nearly 20 years of FIA coarse woody material (CWM) data are examined across spatial scales to assess change over time in CWM biomass, diameter and decay class, and species composition. Case studies demonstrate the potential of rFIA, an open-source R package developed to improve the accessibility of FIA data and offer enhanced flexibility in estimation strategies, to advance forest health evaluation and monitoring. Six recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects are summarized, addressing forest health concerns at smaller scales.

Titles contained within Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2020

• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Chapter 2 - Broad-scale patterns of insect and disease activity across the 50 United States from the National Insect and Disease Survey, 2019
• Chapter 3 - Broad-scale patterns of forest fire occurrence across the 50 United States and the Caribbean Territories, 2019
• Chapter 4 - Spatial patterns of drought and moisture surplus in the conterminous United States: 2019, and between 2017 to 2019, and 2015 to 2019
• Chapter 5 - Tree mortality
• Chapter 6 - Changes in coarse woody material attributes, U.S. forests, between 2002 to 2011 and 2012 to 2019
• Chapter 7 - Advancing broad-scale forest health evaluation and monitoring with rFIA
• Chapter 8 - Determining what species regenerate in forest stands impacted by Heterobasidion root disease in Wisconsin and Michigan
• Chapter 9 - Legacy effects of emerald ash borer on vegetation in riparian forests and communities of woodboring cerambycid beetles
• Chapter 10 - Vulnerability of Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine to mountain pine beetle
• Chapter 11 - Tree mortality and fuel changes due to extreme drought and concurrent bark beetle outbreaks in California
• Chapter 12 - Accuracy assessment of Insect and Disease Survey and eDaRT for monitoring forest health
• Chapter 13 - Emerald ash borer infestation in Arkansas: extent, severity, and progression

Keywords

Change detection, coarse woody material, drought, fire, forest health, forest insects and disease, tree canopy, tree mortality

Citation

Potter, Kevin M.; Conkling, Barbara L., eds. 2021. Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2020. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-261. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 211 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-261.