July 2000 Progress Report on Question TIMBR-1

TIMBR-1: July 2000 Progress Report

"What are the history, status and projected future demands for and supplies of wood products in the South?"

July 18-19, 2000, Nashville TN

Status Report on Timber Markets and Forest Management Question #1, TIMBR-1

Specifically Identified Tasks

Evaluate supply and demand for all species groups and timber products including sawtimber, pulpwood, veneer, other fiber products, and fuelwood.
Examine the effects of population growth and land use change on timber supply—e.g., with more people, how is the "availability" of timber different?
Evaluate the linkages to international markets and consider implications of changing wood product exports and imports of competing materials.
Address the impacts of changing management intensity and productivity on supply and the resulting composition of forests.
Evaluate market linkages with other parts of the United States.
Address how changing technology and the emergence of new products (change in product mix) could affect all markets.

The goal is to provide an overview of Southern wood use. To do this, we need to assemble historical information on use and make predictions about use. The historical information assembly is fairly labor intensive and routine. Predictions of the future should always be understood to contain substantial uncertainties, but they can be done.

Timber Supply and Demand Projections (addressing aspects of items a, b, possibly c, d, possibly e, possibly f)

Predictions can be made about wood use in the South by applying models of the national economy, southern land use, and the forest sector. Such models use estimated empirical and assumed structural relationships among variables and the levels and expected trends of these variables. National economic models are used to estimate, using likely trends in such variables as population, work force size, and economic productivity, the most likely paths in, among other things, variables relevant to land use and forests in the South. The land use models are functions of expected population and (grossly) economic outputs at different points in the future. The forest sector models make forest characteristics a function of land use and of the local timber demand and supply situations. These sector models can be solved simultaneously with the land use models, given predictions from the national economic models. The output of these models is therefore a projection of the future of forests: forest area, timber demand and supply, and forest characteristics. Uncertainty in these predictions can be addressed by applying these models under a variety of assumptions regarding, for example, population and economic productivity growth rates.

We are seeking the services of Robert Abt of the Department of Forestry at North Carolina State University to use the latest version of the Subregional Timber Supply (SRTS) model to generate projections of trends under alternative futures for the South at the FIA survey unit scale. We are in the negotiation phase regarding modeling at the scale of Ecoregion provinces and sections. Some preliminary results, under base assumptions are available but will not be reported here. These projections under alternative scenarios would be consistent, to as great an extent possible, with RPA projections, which are largely completed. Background on SRTS can be found in a recent publication by Abt et al. (see * below)

Products of the SRTS modeling effort may include:

Outputted data on projected timber demand, timber supply, inventory volumes, inventory characteristics, and land use by three broad classes, by FIA survey units by year (or suitable temporal snapshots), to 2025 (?)
The same as item 1, but by Bailey’s Ecoregion Provinces (e.g., 231, 232) and/or Sections (e.g., 232A, 232B)
The same as 1 (and maybe 2), but under scenarios of varying management intensities (scenarios to be determined).
The same as 1 (and maybe 2), but under alternative scenarios regarding population growth in the South and U.S. Scenarios would include the full range of possible population growth rates, plus one of no population growth, in order to identify the marginal effects of population growth.

History and Current Status Information Collection (addressing parts of items c and e)

1. We are assembling timber production and trade data for the South, using Department of Commerce data and Forest Service data. Forest Service assistance is by Tony Johnson, of Forest Inventory and Analysis (USFS-SRS), Asheville. The FIA data will derive principally from published Timber Product Output reports. The data will be historical, spanning as many years as possible, to the most recent year available. We are going to do our best to assemble these data for as many products available (e.g., sawtimber, pulpwood, and fuelwood, by species groups of some detail).

2. John Pye (USFS-SRS, RTP, NC) and Jeff Prestemon have put together mill maps, available on the Web, that show locations of mills of most types (not chip mills) for the entire Eastern U.S. (except for the Caribbean possessions, P.R.). Our data are for one snapshot in time and are freely available for download and use. These maps include the locations of sawmills, pulp mills, veneer/plywood mills, post/pole/piling mills, and other mills (but very few chip mills outside of Texas). It is our intention to include some version of these maps in the Southern Assessment report: http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/econ/data/mills/mills.htm

3. Tony Johnson has assembled data on locations of chip mills, Southwide, and for at least two snapshots in time.