SOCIO-1: October 2000 Progress Report

How have land uses changed in the South and how might changes in the future affect the area of forests?

David Wear

October 11-12, 2000, Atlanta, GA

Progress organized by approach to the question:


  1. Compile and analyze historical data on land use changes in the South.
    1. State level historical data have been compiled for cropland, pasture, forest, urban, and other for the years 1945-1992 at roughly five-year intervals (Source: compiled by the USDA Economic Research Service).
    2. County level data have been compiled for forest, cropland, pasture, urban, and other for the years 1982, 1987, and 1992 (Source: NRI).
    3. Issue: 1997 NRI land use data have been withdrawn and are not yet available. As of 9/22/00, NRI indicates another "few months" may be needed to finalize the 1997 results. We will therefore use 1992 observations as the baseline for analysis.

  2. Compile historical data on driving variables.
    1. County level data for population density have been compiled for the years 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 (source: Census of Population).
    2. County level data on household income, personal income, housing values, have been compiled for the years 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 (source: Department of Commerce).
    3. County level data on agriculture revenues and costs have been compiled for the years 1982, 1987, and 1992 (Source: Department of Agriculture).

  3. Compile forecasts of driving variables.
    1. County level projections of population density and income variables have been compiled for 2000, 2010, and 2020 (source: Woods and Poole).

  4. Develop forecasts of land uses at the county level.
    1. Current model has been used to generate forecasts for land uses to the year 2020 at the county level of resolution.

  5. Examine urban:rural condition of forests.
    1. Data on forestland area and population density have been used to construct a Forest Population Density index for counties-for years 1982 and 1992 (see above for sources).
    2. Final forecasts will be used to construct the same for 2010 and 2020.

  6. Fragmentation Analysis.
    1. Coverage of various fragmentation measures are available. Kurt Riitters (USFS, Forest Health Monitoring) is compiling various measures of landscape structure from the MRLC data set for ecoregions and for counties.
    2. Issue: Preliminary land cover maps of LA and AR have been completed. We will not have coverage of TX and OK for the assessment.

 

 

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 modified: 26-Oct-2000
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