Projecting Other Public Inventories for the 2005 Rpa Timber Assessment Update

This study gives an overview of the current inventory status and the projection of future forest inventories on other public timberland. Other public lands are lands administered by state, local, and federal government but excluding National Forest System lands. These projections were used as part of the 2005 USDA Forest Service Resource Planning Act timber assessment update. The projections were made by region and forest type by using the modified Aggregated Timberland Assessment System and the forest inventory data with methods and procedures consistent with the methods used for private and national forest inventory projections. Although the projected inventory volume differs by region, both softwood and hardwood inventories on other public timberlands in the United States are projected to increase over 60 percent during the next 50 years. Forest net growth exceeds harvest in most regions pushing inventory volumes up. The one exception is the Pacific Northwest East (ponderosa pine region) where the softwood inventory is expected to decrease until 2030 owing to lower softwood net growth and then slowly increase. The mature and old mature stands for both softwood and hardwood are projected to increase significantly for all regions especially in the South region where proportion of mature and old mature increases from 9 to 54 percent for softwood and 4 to 55 percent for hardwood.