Trends of forest inventory data in Alabama, USA, during the last seven decades

Abstract

Long-term time series of forest inventory information at a local scale could provide information about trends in local forest resource changes and be useful for testing some hypotheses about forestry development. Based on forest inventory data and related human population information in Alabama's 67 counties for the past seven decades, the trend of forest resource change (e.g. area and resource composition) for Alabama was characterized as well as the complicated relationship between human population and commercial forest land at county level. These results indicate that (1) only two counties had increased human population and decreased commercial forest area, (2) commercial forest coverage increased in counties with a relatively poor economy and (3) counties with more commercial forest coverage had fewer roads. Therefore, long-term forest inventory information and other related data could uncover emergent trends of changing Alabama forest resources and may be helpful for local forest resource management and development. © Institute of Chartered Foresters, 2010. All rights reserved.