Vulnerability of Mid-Atlantic forested watersheds to timber harvest disturbance

Forested watersheds of the Mid-Atlantic Region are an important economic resource. They are also critical for maintaining water quality, sustaining important ecological services, and providing habitat to many animal and plant species of conservation concern. These forests are vulnerable to disturbance and fragmentation from changing patterns of land use in the Mid-Atlantic Region, and from harvests of commercially mature and relatively inexpensive timber. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA-FS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) compiles data on forest condition by state and county. We have transformed these FIA data to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 6-digithdrologic unit code (HUC 6) watershed base, and projected trends in timber growth, inventory, and harvest to 2025 using a timber economics forecasting model (SRTS). We consider forest sustainability from the perspective of timber production, and from the perspective of landscape stability important to conservation values. Simulation data is combined with FIA planted pine acreage data to form a more complete picture of forest extent, composition, and silvicultural practice. Early recognition of prevailing economic trends which encourage the fragmentation of mature forests due to increasing timber harvests may provide managers and policy makers with a planning tool to mitigate undesirable impacts.