Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2019

Abstract

The annual national report of the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents forest health status and trends from a national or multi-State regional perspective using a variety of sources, introduces new techniques for analyzing forest health data, and summarizes results of recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects funded through the FHM national program. In this 19th edition in a series of annual reports, national survey data are used to identify recent geographic patterns of insect and disease activity. Satellite data are employed to detect geographic patterns of forest fire occurrence. Recent drought and moisture surplus conditions are compared across the conterminous United States. Data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program are employed to detect regional differences in tree mortality. Twenty years of national Insect and Disease Survey data are used to provide a retrospective medium-term analysis of insect and disease damage to forests across the United States. A new measure is described for detecting forest disturbance using high-frequency satellite data. Two recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects are summarized, addressing forest health concerns at smaller scales.

Titles contained within Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2019

• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Chapter 2 - Large-scale patterns of insect and disease activity in the conterminous United States, Alaska, and Hawaii from the national Insect and Disease Survey, 2018
• Chapter 3 - Broad-scale patterns of forest fire occurrence across the 50 United States and the Caribbean Territories, 2018
• Chapter 4 - Drought and moisture surplus patterns in the conterminous United States: 2018, 2016– 2018, and 2014–2018
• Chapter 5 - Tree mortality
• Chapter 6 - A forest health retrospective: national and regional results from 20 years of Insect and Disease Survey data
• Chapter 7 - Satellite-based evidence of forest stress and decline across the conterminous United States for 2016, 2017, and 2018
• Chapter 8 - Assessment and etiology of thousand cankers disease within the native range of black walnut (Juglans nigra)
• Chapter 9 - Woodboring beetle colonization of conifers killed by fire and bark beetles: implications for forest restoration and black-backed woodpecker conservation

Keywords

Change detection, drought, fire, forest health, forest insects and disease, tree canopy, tree mortality.

Citation

Potter, Kevin M.; Conkling, Barbara L., eds. 2020. Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2019. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-250. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 189 p.