West Virginia Forests, 2013

Abstract

The annual inventory of West Virginia's forests, completed in 2013, covers nearly 12.2 million acres of forest land with an average volume of more than 2,300 cubic feet per acre. This report is based data collected from 2,808 plots located across the State. Forest land is dominated by the oak/hickory forest-type group, which occupies 74 percent of total forest land area. Seventyeight percent of forest land area consists of a plurality of large diameter trees, 15 percent contains medium diameter trees, and 7 percent contains small diameter trees. The volume of growing stock on timberland has been rising since the 1950s and currently totals over 25 billion cubic feet. The average annual net growth of growing-stock trees on timberland from 2008 to 2013 is approximately 519 million cubic feet per year. Important species compositional changes include increases in sapling numbers of yellow-poplar, American beech, and noncommercial species, which coincide with decreases in numbers of trees and saplings of oak species. Additional information is presented on forest attributes, land use change, carbon, timber products, species composition, regeneration, and forest health. Detailed information on forest inventory methods, data quality estimates, and summary tables of population estimates, are available at http://dx.

Climatic Trends of West Virginia: A Representative Appalachian Microcosm

“…Stations were selected with start dates as early as 1900, but no later than 1930, with a nearly continuous time series through the end of 2016. These temporal criteria ensured analyses included the rapid transition from primarily agricultural and pasture lands in the early 20th century to primarily forested land coverage by the middle 20th century and subsequent forest maturation [3,6]. All leap days (i.e., February 29th) were excluded from analyses and daily data were post-processed to ensure all missing dates were included resulting in a continuous time series with 365 days in each year.…”

“…Spatial characteristics of temporal trends were estimated and statistical significance (α = 0.05) assessed over the entire time series (1900-2016) and during the first and second (1959-2016) halves of each time series at each observation location. Analyses for each half of the time series were performed because the data series was sufficiently long and the first half corresponded with reforestation whereas the second half corresponded with forest maturation and globally averaged warming exceeding 0.65 • C [4][5][6]23]. Except for New Cumberland (Table 1, Figure 1), each observation location had a more complete time series of each variable during the second half (93.8%) rather than the first half (71.7%) of the POR suggesting early data gaps (1900-1930) could have influenced results.…”

“…By the 1920s, most lumbermen abandoned WV for lands further south and west [2] and extensive fire prevention efforts resulted in the redevelopment of vast hardwood forests [4]. When the first United States (US) Forest Service forest survey of WV was completed in 1949 an estimated 64% of WV lands were forested, which increased to 75% by the 1961 forest survey [5] and was relatively steady (75% to 79%) through 2012 [6]. Despite relatively steady areal coverage since the 1961 forest survey, timber volume increased through 2012 consistent with a maturing forest ecosystem [6].…”

“…When the first United States (US) Forest Service forest survey of WV was completed in 1949 an estimated 64% of WV lands were forested, which increased to 75% by the 1961 forest survey [5] and was relatively steady (75% to 79%) through 2012 [6]. Despite relatively steady areal coverage since the 1961 forest survey, timber volume increased through 2012 consistent with a maturing forest ecosystem [6]. Given the magnitude of reforestation throughout the broader Appalachian region, WV is an ideal location to assess how the regrowth of native forests may have influenced (or been influenced by) local to regional climatic trends.…”

Timing is Not Everything: Assessing the Efficacy of Pre- Versus Post-Harvest Herbicide Applications in Mitigating the Burgeoning Birch Phenomenon in Regenerating Hardwood Stands

“…Birch increases in forest understories appear to be the 21st century analogue to the red maple (Acer rubrum L.) surge of the 20th century that has now stabilized or even declined in many regions [1,2,8]. Like red maple, birch may be considered a 'super-generalist' (sensu [9]) in that it possesses wide amplitude in key traits that confer recruitment, survival, and growth advantages under a variety of conditions, including recently disturbed stands.…”