Implementing FIA For All of Alaska: FIA & Partners
Greg Reams
FIA National Program Leader
USDA Forest Service
703‐605‐4189
greams@fs.fed.us
FIA SINCE EARLY 1990s
• 1992 Blue Ribbon Panel 1
– Focus on shortening the cycle to 5–10 years
• 1997 Blue Ribbon Panel 2
– No progress, U.S. forests are important
– Annual system begins
– Buy‐in for national program
– Progress begins in earnest with 1998 Farm Bill
• Partnering is center piece for success
4 Regions (“work units”)
PNW Includes
“PNW South”
California
Oregon
Washington
“PNW North”
Alaska
Hawaii
Guam
American Samoa
Palau
Marshall Islands Micronesia
Northern Mariana Islands
WHAT DID WE SAY WE’D DO?
• Work with partners in defining direction and implementation (NFS, states, tribes, NGOs, federal agencies (NOAA/NASA/USGS/BLM/FWS/NPS)
• Inclusive of Forest Health Issues
• Support Sustainability Criteria and Indicators
• Develop a national core of attributes and reports
– With regional flexibility
– Support partner and user needs including spatial products
WHAT WE NEED TO DO
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We are ready to work with Alaska’s partners. In Alaska this is necessary, not
just a wish. Land management responsibilities determines scope of
information needs and where operational support exists throughout the state.
Enhance social, ecological, and economics integration
Support the infrastructure on information needs
– How much forest is there, where, what types?
• How are forests changing, impacts of pests and pathogens?
• Weather and climate impacts?
• What is current state of carbon emission and sequestration?
– Managed land determination
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• How is habitat changing for key and threatened species?
• Can current and future forest biomass meet community energy
needs?
Efficiencies with partners on delivering inventory, monitoring and
assessment
We Rely on Partners for Many Things
Alaska Partner Needs
The FIA National Sample Design • Hexagonal grid placed over the U.S. provides the random locations of each plot • One P2 plot represents ~6,000 acres
• Remeasure each individual plot every 10 years
• This is the “annual measurement system”
10‐Year Cycle:
1/10th of FIA field plots are
sampled per year in Western
United States
Coastal Alaska FIA Plots
• Previous periodic inventory started in southeast Alaska in 1995, gradually moved up the coast, finishing in south‐central Alaska in 2003 • Coastal annual inventory started in 2004 and finishes this year. Remeasurement starts in 2015.
• Data have been collected on 1,998 forested plots (as of 2012)
• Alaska plot design:
– 4 subplots and microplots (no macroplot)
– Core measurements at the plot, condition and tree level
– Incudes understory vegetation and invasive plants
Coastal Alaska FIA Research • First 5‐year report published in 2011
• First 10‐year report, 100% of field plots measured, est. early 2015
• Since 2004, PNW FIA staff have published 15 GTRs and peer‐reviewed journal articles based on coastal AK FIA plots INTERIOR
OUR EXPECTATIONS
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Inventory and monitor forests for all of Alaska
– Good handle on coastal; need to implement interior
Identify shared interests and common avenues for collaboration to gain and apply FIA data among several agencies.
Gain a better understanding of FIA and identify opportunities to make multiple programs economically viable based on agreements among agencies.
Access to additional data that can tell us about ecological systems and processes in Alaska
Look at ways to integrate inventories of all resources to minimize costs for all agencies
Greater ability to quantitatively evaluate the context of the local forests in relation to broader ecoregional and statewide scales
• Define and maintain an Alaska Inventory and Monitoring Working Group? Let’s put the interior on the grid…and have information to address Alaska’s most pressing issues
Thank You! Questions?