TIMBR-1: October 2000 Progress Report

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

Jeff Prestemon

October 11-12, 2000, Atlanta, GA

 

 

Specifically Identified Tasks

1. Evaluate supply and demand for all species groups and timber products including sawtimber, pulpwood, veneer, other fiber products, and fuelwood.

2. 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?

3. Evaluate the linkages to international markets and consider implications of changing wood product exports and imports of competing materials.

4. Address the impacts of changing management intensity and productivity on supply and the resulting composition of forests.

5. Evaluate market linkages with other parts of the United States.

6. Address how changing technology and the emergence of new products (change in product mix) could affect all markets.

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

We have obtained 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 planning 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:

Abt, R.C., F.W. Cubbage, and G. Pacheco. 2000. Southern forest resource assessment using the Subregional Timber Supply (SRTS) model. Forest Products Journal 50(4):25-33.

Products of the SRTS modeling effort may include:

1. 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 (?)
2. The same as item 1, but by a combination of various Bailey’s Ecoregion Sections (e.g., 232A, 232B)
3. The same as 1 (and maybe 2), but under scenarios of varying management intensities (scenarios to be determined).
4. 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 on some data has been obtained from Tony Johnson, of Forest Inventory and Analysis (USFS-SRS), Asheville; Peter Ince and Ken Skog, of the Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin; and David N. Wear, of the Southern Research Station of the Forest Service, RTP, NC. The data are historical, reaching back to at least 1965 and often earlier, to the most recent year available. We are going to (and have already, in some cases) assemble these data for as many products available, including 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 for the entire Eastern U.S. (except for the Caribbean possessions, P.R.). Chip mill location data for a recent year or pair of years will be available soon on the Web. 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. We have obtained data on National Forest Harvests, spanning 1950-1999, by National Forest Region. Hence, we will show how harvests in the Southern region (total harvest by all owners and by National Forests) have changed over time, and compare them will harvests occurring elsewhere in the U.S.

4. Trade data have been partially assembled. These data will be used to place imports and exports of products into and out of the U.S. into the context of production in the South. Some historical data on chip exports from southern ports will also be assembled, which will be compared with total production in the South, to provide some perspective of their relative significance.

 modified: 20-Oct-2000