Publication

Topographic characteristics of forests on the margin

Pye, J. M. and R. M. Sheffield

"Forests on the margin" refers to those lands most prone to entering or leaving forest cover from other land uses. Understanding their characteristics sheds light on the factors driving land use change and helps predict how changes in forest cover are realized spatially and compositionally across the landscape. We used the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis plot records from the Southeastern U.S. to evaluate the importance of two topographic factors, slope and moisture status, for newly forested versus constantly forested sites. We hypothesized that slope and moisture differences between these two groups would reverse from the mountains to the coastal plain as limitations associated wiht steep terrain were replaced by those from inadequate drainagle. As predicted, in the mountains new forests occurred on more gentle slopes than established forests, with differences in the piedmont significant but smaller in magnitude. In the coastal plain slope did not differ significantly between the two groups but new forests were significantly less hydric. Factors favoring movement of lands into forest may well be reciprocal--forests with these conditions might be at greatest risk of agricultural or urban development when broader scale demand factors shift in their direction.

Fiscal Year: fy97 ·  Problem Area: pa98-2 ·  Source: resunit   <== Explain

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