The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the USDA Forest Service has conducted state-by-state forest inventories for 80 years. Because of an emphasis on individual states as inventory units, for most of the program history it was rare for contiguous areas larger than one or two states to be measured concurrently. As a result, attempts to conduct details time-series analysis tended to be limited by confounding geographic bias. When the FIA program converted to a new annual inventory system, starting in the late 1990s, issues with geographic and temporal bias were mostly eliminated by the panelization of the plot “grid”. These changes opened many new opportunities for data collection and analysis. Wide-ranging events, such as insect outbreaks or the effect of severe weather, can now be tracked with annual resolution at sub-continental scales. In turn, new kinds of data are being collected to further enhance analysis capabilities. Using archived collections and newly-collected cores, we are building a high-resolution (5km spacing) database of tree growth over the eight Interior West states, with pilot expansion into the western coastal states starting in 2014. By correlating contemporary records of weather patterns and forest growth, we aim to create a high-resolution map of both patterns well into the past and model ecosystem-level changes in growth fluctuations.
NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE
This talk will still be in the Bryant Bannister Tree-Ring Building, but in the fourth floor conference room (424), not the usual first-floor multipurpose room venue.