Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2021

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 multistate 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 21st 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. Fine-scale change in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to detect broad patterns of forest disturbance across the conterminous United States. Seven recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects are summarized, addressing forest health concerns at smaller scales.