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Data Sources

Reports from USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) units, State forestry organizations, literature, industry associations, and research cooperatives were the primary data sources for the analysis.

Two most recent rounds of FIA surveys (with the exception of Kentucky, where only 1988 FIA survey data were available) were used to determine the status and trends of specific forest management practices that can be observed and recorded on sample plots. For all States, except Kentucky, the latest FIA survey measurement year is in the 1990s. The earlier of the FIA surveys were conducted between 1982 and 1989. Average measurement years for the latest and earlier rounds of the FIA surveys are 1993 and 1986, respectively.

Management practices represented by FIA data include clearcutting, partial cutting, thinning, timber stand improvement (TSI), site preparation, burning, planting, and natural regeneration. Because there were some differences between the Southeast region (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia) and the South-Central region (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas) and between particular States in defining management practices and data collection standards, some adjustments had to be made to develop Southwide forest management practices categories.

In the Southeast, partial cutting, seed-tree cutting, and salvage cutting categories were merged into one partial cutting category that corresponds to the South Central’s partial cutting category. Similarly, in the South Central, thinning, commercial thinning, and precommercial thinning categories were merged into one thinning category that corresponds to the Southeast’s thinning category.

In the Southeast prescribed burning was classified, depending on purpose, as site preparation or other prescribed burning, whereas in the South Central burning could be included in both site preparation and burning categories. This situation raises some concerns with double counting in site preparation and burning categories and the confusion of prescribed burning with wildfires. In Kentucky, burning disturbance was recorded without notation of purpose, and no thinning, timber stand improvement, or site preparation information was noted.

Finally, adjustments had to be made in developing Southwide planting and natural regeneration estimates. In the Southeast, FIA recorded information about planting, afforestation, and natural regeneration. The same information was not available for the South Central. Planting and natural regeneration rates there were developed using stand origin and age variables. This approach yielded only approximate results because FIA used regression results to assign stand ages to sample plots that originally were in a mixed-age category. These problems and assumptions indicate that the results based on FIA data are only moderately accurate.

Since FIA data provide no information about the use of genetically improved stock, fertilizer and herbicide application, or uneven-aged silviculture, other information sources had to be used. These data sources include industry associations, research cooperatives reports, and forest owner surveys.

In particular, the North Carolina State Forest Nutrition Cooperative (2000) provided information about fertilizer application. Forest owner surveys by the Southern Forest Resources Assessment Consortium (SOFAC) and the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) provided information about management intensities on FI, TIMOS, and NIPF timberlands (Moffat and others 1998, Siry 1998, Siry and Cubbage 2001, Siry and others 2001). The surveys and literature review provided information on multiple-use intentions and outcomes, "no active management" approaches, and forestry incentives programs.

Where possible, information was provided by ownership group. FIA data provided information for public (PB), forest industry (FI, includes company and leased land), miscellaneous corporate (MC), and NIPF owner groups. SOFAC and AF&PA surveys provided information for FI, TIMOS, and NIPF owners.