1 / 15

Timber Damage Assessment Report: Hurricane Rita Impact on Texas Forests

Initial assessment of potential timber damage caused by Hurricane Rita in Texas, with detailed field operations and estimated economic impacts. Analysis of field data applied to estimate total value and volume of damaged and affected timber. Implications and perspectives on reforestation and forest management strategies.

alund
Download Presentation

Timber Damage Assessment Report: Hurricane Rita Impact on Texas Forests

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Hurricane Rita Timber Damage Assessment

  2. Initial Map of Potential Damage (SRS)

  3. Texas Forest Service Aerial Survey • Aerial recon began Monday, September 26 with mapping of outer damage boundary • Refined map with 4 damage zones produced on Tuesday night, September 27 NE SE

  4. Timber Damage Map

  5. TFS Forest Inventory & Analysis Team

  6. Timber Damage Field Operations • 10 Texas Forest Service Forest Inventory & Analysis crews worked in the field September 28 & 29 • 222 plots taken over 2 days • Fuel, lodging, and transportation issues • Crews collected: • Percent damaged pine and hardwood • Percent affected pine and hardwood • GPS coordinate • Forest stand type • Forest stand age • Forest stand density

  7. Timber Damage Field Plot Locations

  8. Results of Timber Damage Assessment Field data was applied to current FIA data on September 30 to estimate: • Total value damaged only timber = $462 million • Total value damaged + affected timber = $833 million Damaged = mortality, salvage needed Affected = mortailty not imminent, salvage may or may not be needed

  9. Results of Timber Damage Assessment Field data was applied to current FIA data on September 30 to estimate: • Total volume damaged timber = 533 million cubic feet • Total volume damaged + affected timber = 967 million cubic feet

  10. Results of Timber Damage Assessment Field data was applied to current FIA data on September 30 to estimate: • Total poletimber damage = 1.5 million cords (1.2 million cords affected) • Total sawtimber damage = 2.1 billion board feet (1.7 billion board feet affected)

  11. Timber Damage Results by County

  12. Timber Damage Results by Ownership

  13. Putting Damage in Perspective • Volume of damaged timber (533 million cubic feet) is slightly less than the total volume of growing stock removals (harvests) in 2004 (645 million cubic feet) • Volume of damaged + affected timber (967 million cubic feet) is about 6 percent of the overall timber volume in East Texas (15.7 billion cubic feet)

  14. Potential Implications of Timber Damage • Even greater need for increased reforestation • Possible water quality issues from damage to Streamside Management Zones • Greater understanding of more “resistant” forest stand ages and densities • Long-term timber supply for economic development

  15. Texas Forest Service College Station, TX http://texasforestservice.tamu.edu Texas Forestry Association Lufkin, TX http://texasforestry.org

More Related