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Projecting Large-Scale Area Changes in Land Use and Land Cover for Terrestrial Carbon Analyses

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Abstract

One of the largest changes in US forest type areas over the last half-century has involved pine types in the South. The area of planted pine has increased more than 10-fold since 1950, mostly on private lands. Private landowners have responded to market incentives and government programs, including subsidized afforestation on marginal agricultural land. Timber harvest is a crucial disturbance affecting planted pine area, as other forest types are converted to planted pine after harvest. Conversely, however, many harvested pine plantations revert to other forest types, mainly due to passive regeneration behavior on nonindustrial private timberlands. We model land use and land cover changes as a basis for projecting future changes in planted pine area, to aid policy analysts concerned with mitigation activities for global climate change. Projections are prepared in two stages. Projected land use changes include deforestation due to pressures to develop rural land as the human population expands, which is a larger area than that converted from other rural lands (e.g., agriculture) to forestry. In the second stage, transitions among forest types are projected on land allocated to forestry. We consider reforestation, influences of timber harvest, and natural succession and disturbance processes. Baseline projections indicate a net increase of about 5.6 million ha in planted pine area in the South over the next 50 years, with a notable increase in sequestered carbon. Additional opportunities to expand pine plantation area warrant study of landowner behavior to aid in designing more effective incentives for inducing land use and land cover changes to help mitigate climate change and attain other goals.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance of Forest Inventory and Analysis units in helping to interpret forest survey data and helpful review comments by SoEun Ahn, Bill Stanley, Ge Sun, and Marge Victor. Partial funding was provided by the USDA Forest Service’s Resources Planning Act Assessment management unit in Washington, DC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3200 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA, USA

    Ralph J. Alig

  2. Northeastern Research Station, 11 Campus Boulevard, Suite 200 Newton Square, Pennsylvania 19073, USA

    Brett J. Butler

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  1. Ralph J. Alig
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Alig, R., Butler, B. Projecting Large-Scale Area Changes in Land Use and Land Cover for Terrestrial Carbon Analyses. Environmental Management 33, 443–456 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-003-9102-9

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