For two decades, the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, has been charged with implementing a nationwide field-based forest health monitoring effort. Given its extensive nature, the monitoring program has been gradually implemented across forest health indicators and inventoried states. Currently, the Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis program has initiated forest health inventories in all states, and most forest health indicators are being documented in terms of sampling protocols, data management structures, and estimation procedures. Field data from most sample years and indicators are available on-line with numerous analytical examples published both internally and externally. This investment in national forest health monitoring has begun to yield dividends by allowing evaluation of state/regional forest health issues (e.g., pollution and invasive pests) and contributing substantially to national/international reporting efforts (e.g., National Report on Sustainability and US EPA Annual Greenhouse Gas Estimates). With the emerging threat of climate change, full national implementation and remeasurement of a forest health inventory should allow for more robust assessment of forest communities that are undergoing unprecedented changes, aiding future land management and policy decisions.
Ozone is an important forest stressor that has been measured at known phytotoxic levels at forest locations across the United States. The percent forest exhibiting negative impacts from ozone air pollution is one of the Montreal Process indicators of forest health and vitality. The ozone bioindicator data of the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA) are the only source of information available that documents plant injury from air pollution using consistent protocols. This document introduces the FIA ozone indicator and describes the sampling and estimation procedures of the national biomonitoring program. We provide background material on ozone, examples of bioindicator summary statistics, a description of spatial interpolation, and methods to estimate status and change in forested areas with respect to the occurrence of ozone injury from ambient ozone concentrations. The goal is to provide guidance to analysts and researchers on ways to incorporate ozone bioindicator data into reports and research studies. Periodic recommendations to analysts on improved analytical techniques will be made. Analysts are encouraged to consult the companion user guide for additional guidance on interpreting the ozone biomonitoring data and reporting on the issue of ozone and forest health for the FIA program.
In 1994, the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) and Forest Health Monitoring programs of the U.S. Forest Service implemented a national ozone (O 3) biomonitoring program designed to address specific questions about the area and percent of forest land subject to levels of O 3 pollution that may negatively affect the forest ecosystem. This is the first and only nationally consistent effort to monitor O 3 stress on the forests of the United States. This report provides background information on O 3 and its effects on trees and ecosystems, and describes the rationale behind using sensitive bioindicator plants to detect O 3 stress and assess the risk of probable O 3 impact. Also included are a description of field methods, analytic techniques, estimation procedures, and how to access, use and interpret the ozone bioindicator attributes and data outputs such as the national ozone risk map.
Describes the structure of the Forest Inventory and Analysis Database (FIADB) 4.0 for phase 3 indicators. The FIADB structure provides a consistent framework for storing forest health monitoring data across all ownerships for the entire United States. These data are available to the public.
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