Traditional forest inventories have measured such things as total forest area, forest as a percent of all land, timberland area, reserved forest land, forest area by forest type, size class by forest type, age class by forest type, forest land ownership, mortality, net growth, net removals, wood consumption, and wood imports and exports. This list will soon become much longer.
As governments and land management agencies at all levels have attempted to address public concerns about long-term sustainability one result has been the development of lists of criteria and indicators that might provide early clues as to non-sustainable practices. Proposed new metrics for forest monitoring efforts in the U.S. include the following (USDA-Forest Service 2003a, USDA-Forest Service 2003b):
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Average patch size
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Amount of edge
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Interpatch distance
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Number of federally listed forest associated species (by status and major taxa and relative to total)
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Number of state listed species
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Number of state rare forest and woodland communities
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Number of globally rare communities
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Animal browsing and animal population statistics
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Soil erosion
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Diminished soil organic matter and/or change in other soil physical properties
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Compaction and/or change in other soil physical properties resulting from human activities
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Forest land per watershed
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Index of watershed indicators
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Ecosystem biomass
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Carbon pool (metric tons)
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Carbon flux (metric tons/year)
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Recreation participants by activity
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Recreation expenditures by activity
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Miles of trail (by type)
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Number of campgrounds
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Wild and scenic rivers
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Forest legacy acres
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Research natural areas
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Biodiversity protection areas
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Old growth (acres)
A concern in this regard is that forest inventory personnel appear to be stretched to the limit collecting and reporting current data. New data collection requirements will greatly magnify the collection and reporting effort, and without adoption of new approaches and/or significant increases in forest inventory budgets, problems are likely.
Traditional forest inventories have measured such things as total forest area, forest as a percent of all land, timberland area, reserved forest land, forest area by forest type, size class by forest type, age class by forest type, forest land ownership, mortality, net growth, net removals, wood consumption, and wood imports and exports. This list will soon become much longer.