Forces of change; Social and economics systems; Forest area conditions; Terrestrial ecosystems; Water quality, wetlands, and aquatic ecosystems.

Combined reports of: Report to Congress and Report for the Secretary of Agriculture.

This open access book describes the serious threat of invasive species to native ecosystems. Invasive species have caused and will continue to cause enormous ecological and economic damage with ever increasing world trade. This multi-disciplinary book, written by over 100 national experts, presents the latest research on a wide range of natural science and social science fields that explore the ecology, impacts, and practical tools for management of invasive species. It covers species of all taxonomic groups from insects and pathogens, to plants, vertebrates, and aquatic organisms that impact a diversity of habitats in forests, rangelands and grasslands of the United States. It is well-illustrated, provides summaries of the most important invasive species and issues impacting all regions of the country, and includes a comprehensive primary reference list for each topic. This scientific synthesis provides the cultural, economic, scientific and social context for addressing environmental challenges posed by invasive species and will be a valuable resource for scholars, policy makers, natural resource managers and practitioners.

"Southern forests provide innumerable benefits. Forest scientists, managers, owners, and users have in common the desire to improve the condition of these forests and the ecosystems they support. A first step is to understand the contributions science has made and continues to make to the care and management of forests. This book represents a celebration of past accomplishments, summarizes the current state of knowledge, and creates a vision for the future of southern forestry research and management. Chapters are organized into seven sections: "Looking Back," "Productivity," "Forest Health," "Water and Soils," "Socioeconomic," "Biodiversity," and "Climate Change." Each section is preceded by a brief introductory chapter. Authors were encouraged to focus on the most important aspects of their topics; citations are included to guide readers to further information."

This study presents techniques for calculating average net annual additions to carbon in forests and in forest products. Forest ecosystem carbon yield tables, representing stand-level merchantable volume and carbon pools as a function of stand age, were developed for 51 forest types within 10 regions of the United States. Separate tables were developed for afforestation and reforestation. Because carbon continues to be sequestered in harvested wood, approaches to calculate carbon sequestered in harvested forest products are included. Although these calculations are simple and inexpensive to use, the uncertainty of results obtained by using representative average values may be high relative to other techniques that use site- or project-specific data. The estimates and methods in this report are consistent with guidelines being updated for the U.S. Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program and with guidelines developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The CD-ROM included with this publication contains a complete set of tables in spreadsheet format.

The Southern Forest Resource Assessment was initiated in 1999 as a result of concerns raised by natural resource managers, the science community, and the public regarding the status and likely future of forests in the South. These included changes to the regiongass forests brought about by rapid urbanization, increasing timber demand, increasing numbers of satellite chip mills, forest pests, and changing air quality. In response to these issues, leaders of four of the regiongass Federal natural resource agencies (USDA Forest Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), and the Tennessee Valley Authority, agreed to work together to provide a careful evaluation of the overall condition and ongoing changes of southern forests. State forestry and fish and wildlife agencies were invited to take part and have actively contributed to the effort. The USDA Forest Service, through the Southern Region and Southern Research Station, has provided overall leadership. The Technical Report (General Technical Report SRS-53) and this Summary Report are the culmination of more than 3 years of effort by more than 25 scientists and analysts from the above agencies as well as southern universities. More than 100 scientists from universities, State and Federal agencies, industry, and conservation organizations provided peer reviews to enhance the reportsgas accuracy and completeness. This Summary Report is intended to provide its reader with an overview of the many forces of change affecting southern forests and the changes they produce. It summarizes the detailed results reported by Assessment Team members in individual chapters of the full Technical Report. The information contained in the body of the Assessment should enhance public understanding of southern forests, inform public debate, and improve public policies that result.

The built environment, as used in this guide, refers to the administrative and recreation buildings, landscape structures, site furnishings, structures on roads and trails, and signs installed or operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, its cooperators, and permittees.

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service is in the process of moving from a system of quasi-independent, regional, periodic inventories to an enhanced program featuring greater national consistency, a complete and annual sample of each State, new reporting requirements, and integration with the ground sampling component of the Forest Health Monitoring Program. This documentation presents an overview of the conceptual design, describes the sampling frame and plot configuration, presents the estimators that form the basis of FIA's National Information Management System (NIMS), and shows how annual data are combined for analysis. It also references a number of Web-based supplementary documents that provide greater detail about some of the more obscure aspects of the sampling and estimation system, as well as examples of calculations for most of the common estimators produced by FIA.