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Projecting southern timber supply for multiple products by subregion

Informally Refereed

Abstract

While timber supply modeling has been of importance in the wood-producing regions of the United States for decades, it is only more recently that the technology and data have allowed disaggregation of supply and demand to substate regions, including product specific breakdowns and endogenous land use and plantation changes. Using southwide data and an economic supply and demand framework, the Subregional Timber Supply model was used to project timber inventory, removals, and price, for subregions of the 12 southern states through 2030. Two hypothetical demand scenarios were modeled to reflect current recessionary impacts and potential for added bio-energy demands: 1) constant demands based on average 2002 to 2007 removals, and 2) a 30-percent recession reduction (2006 to 2009) and rebound by the same percentage (2010 to 2013), followed by a 0.5 percent per year demand increase for all products. Projections indicate that pine pulpwood markets are the least volatile under both demand scenarios and small pine sawtimber are the most volatile. Larger pine sawtimber markets have moderate price decreases due to the recession, which later increase to levels near current prices. Hardwood pulpwood and sawtimber both experience recessionary price decreases, and while prices recover partially, they do not return to current levels by the end of the projection period. Also, more growth and less timberland loss shifts more timber production and harvests to the southern coastal plain areas.

Citation

Abt, Robert C.; Cubbage, Frederick W.; Abt, Karen L. 2009. Projecting southern timber supply for multiple products by subregion. Forest Products Journal 59(7-8):7-16.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/36290