Abstract
In response to the strategic plan required by the Agricultural Act of 2014, the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is initiating a strategic inventory of the nation’s urban forests. The inventory is designed to provide timely and credible data on urban forests, thereby meeting an expanding need for information on trees located in communities where more than 80% of people live. The program monitors the status and trends of trees in urban settings (i.e., urban forests), enabling assessment of their composition and structure, ecosystem services and values, health, and risk from pests and disease. At full implementation with funding, resources, and partnerships in place, the program as designed would provide annual updates of urban forest conditions on approximately 68 million acres of land and for 100 of the most populous cities in the United States. The traditional forestland inventory of FIA continues and is complemented by the new urban inventory providing the means for a more complete assessment of the tree and forest resources across the United States.
Study Implications
Urban forests provide many benefits that improve the quality of life for people residing in urban settings. By initiating an urban inventory, the FIA program seeks to provide consistent, timely, and credible data about urban forests across the United States and thereby meet the needs of users and partners as expressed in its strategic plan. In addition to baseline information, the urban inventory will provide information on urban forest change for managers to help guide or mitigate forest and environmental changes to desirable outcomes. State, regional, and national urban forest assessments useful to setting policy will be strengthened by the standardized data collection procedures. The urban inventory is a significant step toward more seamless rural-urban monitoring and “all tree” assessments that will be necessary to address the challenges that urban expansion presents to adjacent rural and forestlands.