Introduction

America’s forest lands contribute in a myriad of ways to the economic, ecological, and social well-being of the Nation. Increasingly, however, forest lands are threatened from a variety of sources including urbanization, low-density housing development, climate change, invasive flora and fauna, wildfire, pollution, fragmentation, and parcelization. The increasing emphasis on sustainable forest management and loss of open space requires quantitative and spatial assessments of the impacts of threats to forest lands and their contributions. The Forests on the Edge (FOTE) project, sponsored by the Cooperative Forestry Staff, State and Private Forestry, USDA Forest Service, conducts map-based assessments of threats to the private forest lands of the United States (U.S.) using spatial data layers and geographic information systems. The objectives of the study described here are threefold: (1) To construct nationally consistent data layers depicting the spatial location of private forest lands and their contributions; (2) to construct similar layers depicting threats to the contributions of private forest land from sources such as conversion to urban and exurban uses, wildfire, and pollution; and (3) to identify watersheds whose private forest lands simultaneously make the most important contributions and face the greatest threats.

The Montreal process criteria and indicators provide an appropriate context for framing and conducting these assessments (McRoberts and others 2004). For example, criterion 2, maintenance of the productive capacity of forest ecosystems, includes indicators related to forest area and timber production; criterion 3, maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality, includes indicators related to fire, wind, disease, and insects; and criterion 4, conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources, includes indicators related to the contributions of forests to water quality.