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Assessing forest ownership dynamics in the United States: Methods and challenges

Informally Refereed

Abstract

The National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) is conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) Program as the social complement to its biophysical inventory. The NWOS is aimed at understanding who owns the forests of the United States, why they own it, what they have done with it in the past, and what they plan to do with it in the future. On a recurring basis, self-administered surveys are sent to randomly selected private forest owners from across the U.S. The sample points correspond with plot center of the FIA Phase 2 field plots. For the first time, in 2011, the NWOS began to resample points that were sampled between 2002 and 2006. If the same owner still owned the sample point, they were resurveyed and if there was a new ownership, they were surveyed for the first time. These results will provide the most comprehensive examination of forest ownership dynamics in the U.S. to date. Topics that will be explored include parcellation and changes in forest owners’ attitudes, behaviors, and demographics. This information should prove useful to state forestry agencies, policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, forest industry, educators, researchers, forest landowner organizations, and anyone who is interested in understanding forest owners and/or interacting with them.

Parent Publication

Keywords

statistics, estimation, sampling, modeling, remote sensing, forest health, data integrity, environmental monitoring, cover estimation, international forest monitoring

Citation

Butler, Brett J.; Dickinson, Brenton J.; Hewes, Jaketon H. 2012. Assessing forest ownership dynamics in the United States: Methods and challenges. In: Morin, Randall S.; Liknes, Greg C., comps. Moving from status to trends: Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2012; 2012 December 4-6; Baltimore, MD. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-105. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. [CD-ROM]: 12-15.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/42664