Iowa Forests, 2013

The third full annual inventory of Iowa's forests (2009-2013) indicates that just under 3 million acres of forest land exists in the State, 81 percent of which is in family forest ownership. Almost all of Iowa's forest land is timberland (96 percent), with an average volume of more than 1,000 cubic feet of growing stock per acre on timberland and more than 1,500 cubic feet of all live volume (for trees at least 5 inches diameter at breast height) per acre on timberland. American elm and eastern hophornbeam are the most numerous tree species, but bur oak and silver maple predominate in terms of live-tree volume. Iowa's forest land is composed of 70 percent sawtimber, 17 percent poletimber, and 13 percent sapling/seedling or nonstocked size classes. Average annual net growth of growing-stock trees on Iowa’s timberland decreased during the past decade to the current estimate of 71 million cubic feet. This report includes additional information on forest attributes, land-use change, carbon, timber products, wildlife habitat, forest health, and future projections. The following information is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.2737/NRS-RB-102: 1) descriptive information on methods, statistics, and quality assurance of data collection, 2) a glossary of terms, 3) tables that summarize quality assurance, 4) a core set of tabular estimates for a variety of forest resources, and 5) a Microsoft® Access database that represents an archive of data used in this report, with tools that allow users to produce customized estimates.