Forest and Forest Ownership Characteristics across Urban-Rural Gradients of the Northern United States
Many regions in the United States are experiencing rapid land use changes in the form of exurban development. The increased buildings and related infrastructure continues to alter habitat quality and quantity, with increased fragmentation of remnant forests, riparian zones, urban woodlands, rural landscape and wildland-urban interface. These increasingly widespread changes have important implications for biodiversity, ecological processes, and forest management activities. As identified by several studies, working across land ownership boundaries, especially with private landowners, will be a key conservation strategy (USDA 2007).
Private forests, covering about 56% of all forestland in the United States (Butler 2008), offer a plethora of goods and ecosystem services, including wildlife habitat, timber, and recreational opportunities. The ways these private lands are managed (at present and in future) affects resource availability to various wildlife species, nutrient and biogeochemical cycles across the urban-rural gradients, and natural fire regime among many other environmental issues.
As one of the Northern Forest Futures Project (NFFP) teams, our objective is to study changes in forest characteristics and associated ownership patterns across the northern United States urban-rural interfaces. This study will help us to better understand differences in forest ownership characteristics across urban, exurban and rural gradients and how these differences correlate with forest attributes. In addition, we will examine how forest ownership patterns, and the correlated forest characteristics, are likely to change under various future scenarios.
References
- Butler, B.J. 2008. Family forest owners of the United States, 2006. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-27. Newtown Square, PA: USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station.
- USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), 2007. Forest Service open space conservation strategy. Report FS-889 USDA Forest Service, Washington, D.C.
