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The Upper Midwest states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan are among the most heavily forested in the nation, with 41% of their total area, or 20.4 million hectares, in forested lands. Forest diversity ranges from cool, near-boreal forests of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin to warm, oak-hickory forests of southern Wisconsin and Michigan, spanning 11 geomorphic sections in the Laurentian Mixed Forest and Eastern Broadleaf Forest provinces, populated by a dozen major conifer and 50 major hardwood species. Devastated by uncontrolled logging, fire and agricultural development a century ago, forests have recovered dramatically across the region, and mature stands are now abundant in much of the region, their pioneer trees slowly yielding to shade-tolerant species. Even apart from this increasing growth and harvest, demands on these timberlands are intensifying. Public policy shifts play a role: drastic reductions in harvests from western National Forests, and similar though smaller cutbacks in timber management on National Forests in the Midwest, have placed a heavier burden on state, local and private lands. At the same time, forestland available for timber production is shrinking on account of urban and commercial expansion, the "rural sprawl" of second-home and recreational development, and other conflicting land uses. | |
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Surveys indicate that the majority of urban-oriented Americans appreciate forests chiefly for their non-commodity values of recreation, aesthetics, and biodiversity; yet rural residents depend upon forests for employment. As a result, forest managers are receiving increased pressure to meet the wood and fiber demands of a growing population, while at the same time managing forests on a sustainable basis. |
| Our understanding of the multiple effects of human population and consumption patterns, public policy, biogeoclimatic trends, and their interaction on the growth of forests is accumulating, but is only beginning to be incorporated into management policy. Many existing management tools are geared to wood production, to particular wildlife species, to the control of particular kinds of damage. Forest managers need quantitative models that allow them to estimate probable outcomes of various land management and climate change scenarios, and techniques for monitoring forest growth and health over large areas. Models must provide a reasonable representation of the carbon, nitrogen, and water budgets for land managers adequately to evaluate the impact of their decisions on forest yield and long-term site productivity. Remote sensing of forests is likely to be a key component in the development and use of such management models, in that it can be used both to map the general characteristics of forests and to drive process-based models that are more general and robust than empirical models. To read more about Forestry Applications please see our whitepaper (2.02 MB PDF). | |
