Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2019

Potter, Kevin M.; Conkling, Barbara L., eds. 2020. Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2019. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-250. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 189 p.The annual national report of the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents forest health status and trends from a national or multi-State regional perspective using a variety of sources, introduces new techniques for analyzing forest health data, and summarizes results of recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects funded through the FHM national program. In this 19th edition in a series of annual reports, national survey data are used to identify recent geographic patterns of insect and disease activity. Satellite data are employed to detect geographic patterns of forest fire occurrence. Recent drought and moisture surplus conditions are compared across the conterminous United States. Data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program are employed to detect regional differences in tree mortality. Twenty years of national Insect and Disease Survey data are used to provide a retrospective medium-term analysis of insect and disease damage to forests across the United States. A new measure is described for detecting forest disturbance using high-frequency satellite data. Two recently completed Evaluation Monitoring projects are summarized, addressing forest health concerns at smaller scales.