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Tracking Forests
Article #219, February 2015
By Bill Cook

Tracking forest statistics is an essential piece of understanding forest trends.  Wood and environmental services from forests are critical to the success and welfare of human society. 
    
     How much forest is there?  Has there been more, or less, than over recent decades?  What types of forests exist and how has the mix changed?  How diverse are Lake States forests compared to other forests in the United States? 
     These are just a few of the many questions commonly asked about forest resources.  Some answers are easier to come by than others.  Definitions, interpretations, and understanding the statistical measures all color the results of an analysis.
     For example, exactly what is a forest?  What are the parameters for acreage, volume, number of trees, growth rate, tree size, etc.?  Which units will be used to describe the quantitative measures?  What about the qualitative measures? 
     Most forest inventory statisticians, or forest biometricians, will have difficulty in providing an answer to a general question without a series of caveats.  Even a simple question such as; “How many trees grow in Michigan?” needs clarification.  How small of a tree should be counted?  One of the billions of brand-new seedlings that have a low chance of surviving to the next growing season?  When does a shrub become a tree? 
     The best source, and sometimes the only source, of statewide forest inventory data is the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program.  Since the 1930s, the Forest Service has been, more or less, systematically inventorying the forests of the United States.  There is a lot of sampling and statistical design, sometimes controversial.  Some state governments add money to the pot for additional sample plots in order to obtain more precise information. 
     Local inventories on a specific forest ownership might have different inventory systems that describe the forest in different ways.  A forester preparing a forest management plan for a family forest will likely categorize forests in ways more useful to the specific owners.  Private parcels are far too small to use the Forest Service data. 
     However, statewide and region-wide forest conditions are best described by the Forest Service database.  Each year, a short report is prepared for each state.  Michigan’s most recent is for 2013, but the 2014 report should soon be available. 
     The thousands of sample plots were once measured every decade or so.  However, since 1999, a fifth of the plots are re-measured annually on a five year cycle.  The annualized system provides critical data more often than the older system.  The database is available on-line, but forestry and statistical expertise is needed to effectively navigate the tools. 
     Many questions can be answered by reviewing the annual Forest Service reports, complete with caveats and sampling errors.  For example; “Volumes are for 5-inch and larger diameter trees.  Number of trees and biomass are for 1-inch and larger diameter trees.  Sampling errors and error bars shown in tables and figures represent 68 percent confidence intervals.”  From there, various categories of volume estimates are given. 
     One is the half-million acre increase in forest land from 2008 to 2013, to a total exceeding 20 million acres, about 53 percent of Michigan’s land cover.  Volume removals (mostly harvest) are reduced.  Natural mortality has increased significantly, mostly due to losses in the ash and beech resources.  Growth exceeded removals by over 100 percent each year, as it has for decades. 
     The most common forest type is maple/beech/birch, mostly what we call our “northern hardwood” type.  The most common tree species are sugar maple, red maple, white-cedar, red pine, and red oak.  Over 60 percent of the forest is privately-owned, including over two million acres of corporate forest.  Individuals own about 45 percent of the forest.  The area of large-diameter trees continues to expand. 
     The descriptive profile varies geographically across the state.  Forests of the western Upper Peninsula are quite different from forests in the southern Lower Peninsula.  This is, of course, not a surprise.  However, the inventory statistics help define just what those differences are.
     So, how are our forests doing?  Pretty well, actually, considering this, that, and the other thing.   

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Trailer
Bill Cook is an MSU Extension forester providing educational programming for the Upper Peninsula. His office is located at the MSU Forest Biomass Innovation Center near Escanaba. The Center is the headquarters for three MSU Forestry properties in the U.P., with a combined area of about 8,000 acres. He can be reached at cookwi@msu.edu or 906-786-1575.

Prepared by Bill Cook, Forester/Biologist, Michigan State University Extension, 6005 J Road, Escanaba, MI  49829
906-786-1575 (voice),  906-786-9370 (fax),  e-mail:  cookwi@msu.edu

Use / reprinting of these articles is encouraged. Please notify Bill Cook.
By-line should read "Bill Cook, MSU Extension" Please use the article trailer whenever possible.

Michigan State University is an affirmative action equal opportunity institution.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital status or family status.   (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.)

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Last update of this page was 3 February, 2015

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