Area changes in U.S. forests and other major land uses, 1982 to 2002, with projections to 2062.

Abstract

The Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is dedicated to the principle of multiple use management of the Nation's forest resources for sustained yields of wood, water, forage, wildlife, and recreation. Through forestry research, cooperation with the States and private forest owners, and management of the national forests and national grasslands, it strives-as directed by Congress-to provide increasingly greater service to a growing Nation.The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.

Economic‐based projections of future land use in the conterminous United States under alternative policy scenarios

“…The net returns data was provided by Lubowski et al (2006). The basis for our policy simulations are changes in the variables in X i , which produces changes in the land-use transition probabilities (see Alig et al [2010] for a related application).…”

Forest Management in an Urbanizing Landscape

“…Population and personal incomes growth are the primary forces driving changes in the forest landscape (Kline et al (2004), Alig et al (2010)). By increasing the demand for land in residential use and therefore its value, these forces create pressure for foresters to either sell or convert their land to urban use.…”

Temporal Changes to Fire Risk in Disparate Wildland Urban Interface Communities

“…According to Alig et al (2010), the area of urban and developed land uses in the United States has increased by more than 1 million acres annually since 1982. This development had come at a cost to forested lands (Gude et al, 2008) and will continue to do so.…”

“…This development had come at a cost to forested lands (Gude et al, 2008) and will continue to do so. It is projected that 49.7 million acres of forests will be converted to urban land uses by the year 2062 (Alig et al, 2010).…”

“…Fire risk can be defined as the likelihood of loss during a wildfire (Bachmann and Allgöwer, 2001;Hardy, 2005;Sampson et al, 2000). As projections indicate that the WUI will continue to expand, the assessment of how fire risk is changing over time is important for WUI planning and fire risk reduction (Alig et al, 2010;Theobald and Romme, 2007). Ideally, a fire risk assessment should include a quantification of structural and home ignition zone attributes.…”