Overview of the Forest Health Monitoring Program

-This paper presents an overview of the Forest Health Monitoring Program (FHM), a partnership among the USDA Forest Service, State Foresters, universities, and the USDI Bureau of Land Management. The purpose of FHM is to annually assess the condit ion of the nation’s forested ecosystems in a standardized way. There are four components of the program-Detection Monitoring, Evaluation Monitoring, Intensive Si te Ecosystem Monitoring, and Research on Monitoring Techniques. At the current level of FHM development, approximately 60 percent of all forestlands in the lower 48 states, regardless of ownership, are covered by the Detect ion Monitor ing permanent plot system. Forests provide numerous benefi ts to society at large, including clean water, high-quali ty recreation, important habitat and biodiversi ty, wood products, and spir i tual values. I t is important for society to have a basic understanding of the condit ion of the forest lands of the United States so that cr i t ical policy decisions related to forest condition can be made. The Forest Health Monitoring Program (FHM) star ted in 1990 as part of the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). This unique partnership among the USDA Forest Service (FS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), State Forestry agencies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the USDI Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, and numerous universi t ies was establ ished to respond to long-term forest heal th monitoring needs. Current partners include the FS, State Foresters, several universi t ies, and the BLM. The FHM program began in New England as a response to concerns about the effects of acid precipitation on local forests. Since then, i t has expanded the permanent plot grid system to 27 states, covering 59 percent of the forest lands of the lower 48 states. The intent of the FS and State Foresters is to expand the plot system to al l 50 sta tes by 2003. The overall purpose of FHM is to provide a basic unders tanding of condit ions in our nat ion’s forests by annual ly assessing the status and trends of forest ecosystem condition across all forestland ownerships. Data are collected and analyzed to determine the current condition and trends over t ime for a variety of forest ecosystem indicators. This information is used to guide management decis ions . Acting National Program Manager, Forest Health Monitoring Program, USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, U S A . CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR FHM Although there is not complete agreement in the forestry community on the defini t ion of forest ecosystem heal th, there is a consensus emerging around the defini t ion the FS uses, namely: Forest ecosystem health is a condit ion of forested ecosystems characterized at the landscape scale by ecological integrity and, within the capability of the ecosystems, susta inabi l i ty of mul t iple benefits , products, and values. There are two parts to this definition: one related to ecological integrityAefined as a concept that expresses the degree to which the biological and physical components ( including structure, process, and composit ion) of an ecosystem and their relationships are present, functioning, and capable of self-renewal-and one related to human needs and values. Sustainability is another term needing clarification. The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) defined sustainable development as meeting the needs of present generations without sacrif icing the needs of future generations. Sustainable forest management is viewed as the forest community’s contr ibut ion to sustainable development and has been in the news extensively over the past few years (Mangold 1995). The FS and other forestry agencies are recasting their respective missions to meet sustainable forest management criteria. In FHM we are viewing forest ecosystem health as an integral part of sustainabil i ty. The two concepts go handin-glove, with sustainabi l i ty being the more encompassing term. However, it is clear that without healthy forests there can be no ecosystem sustainabil i ty. FHM attempts to measure indicators that are related to at tr ibutes of heal thy ecosystems that Kolb e t a l . (1994) have expressed. These at tr ibutes include diversi ty of seral s tages and stand