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Governor's Advisory Committee on Chip Mills
Draft Final Report
A. SUSTAINABLE FOREST RESOURCE BASE
Resource Setting1
On an overall basis, slightly less than one-third of Missouri
-- some 14 million acres -- is covered
by forest land (Table 1). Almost 96% of that area, or about 13.4 million
acres, is classified as timberland.2
About 15% of this area is public land, administered by either the federal
U.S. Forest Service or the Missouri Department of Conservation. Forest
industry owns only 2% of the state's timberland area. The vast
majority of these lands -- some 87% or 11.3 million acres -- is controlled
by nonindustrial private forestland (NIPF) owners. The number of such
owners in Missouri has increased dramatically over the past two decades,
from about 81,000 in 1978 to 307,000 in 1994.
Many of these individuals or groups own relatively small acreages. In Missouri, 45% of NIPF owners own tracts of less than 10 acres, and 79% own tracts of less than 50 acres in size (Table 2). On the other hand, when viewed from the perspective of size of holdings (as opposed to number of owners), slightly more than half of the NIPF acres owned are in tracts of 100 acres or more, and 70% are in tracts of 50 acres or more. Thus much of the acreage is in larger tracts, while most of the owners own small tracts.
The most recent estimates of NIPF ownership turnover rates suggests that the average turnover rate for a given NIPF tract is every 28 years.3 One assumption that was adopted in the following analysis of growth and drain projections from Missouri forests is that an acreage equivalent to most of the NIPF parcels in the state is going to change ownership within the next 50 years. When extending that assumption to the notion of present and future timber availability in the state, this implies that an acreage equivalent to the total acres of NIPF lands in Missouri will be available for timber harvest during that time.
When considering the two existing high-capacity chip mills in Missouri, the area of potential impact shifts from the above statewide focus to a smaller region in southeastern part of the state. For each of these operations it is economically feasible to procure wood from within a 60-mile radius of the
| Table 1. Missouri forest resource and Missouri
timberland by ownership ( Source: Hahn and Spencer 1991 ) A. Missouri Forest Resource (1989) Total Land
44.1 B. Timberland by Ownership (1989) National Forest
1321
10 Total : 13371 |
mill site (Figure 1).4 Thus it is this combined area, some of which is overlapping, in which the impacts of the chip mills on the state's timberland resources will be felt. With respect to the Willamette facility at Mill Spring, about 3/5 of the area within a 60-mile radius of the mill is timberland, and 73% of that land is under NIPF ownership, with the rest under federal (22%) and state (5%) control. For the Canal Industries facility at Scott City, slightly less than 1/3 of the land base within a 60-mile radius of the mill site is timberland; and 81% of these lands are under NIPF ownership, with the rest administered by federal (15%) and state (4%) agencies. It should also be noted that not all lands within the 60-mile radius of the Scott City mill are in Missouri.
Table 2. Estimated number of ownership units and
acres of forest land, by size class and form of ownership, Missouri,
1993
(Source: Birch 1996) 
Timber Growth and Drain
The primary source of information on the status of Missouri's forest resources in terms of land area, volume of standing trees, and rates of timber growth and harvesting is the periodic inventory conducted by the U.S. Forest Service and analyzed through the agency's Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program at the North Central Forest Experiment Station. For Missouri, the two most recent comprehensive forest inventories were completed in 1972 and 1989, respectively. A new statewide inventory of forest resources is underway and will be completed in 2003. This inventory utilizes a new process that will sample approximately 20% of the forest land in Missouri on a continuing basis. However, at present it will be several years until results comparable to those from the 1989 inventory are available for the area around the chip mills. This obviously complicates the task of understanding current and potential impacts of chip mills in Missouri since, among other things, the two high-capacity mills currently operating did not arrive in the state until the late1990's. Their impacts, therefore, along with the impacts of any future mills, can at present only be addressed through the use of inferences based on existing inventory data. This is addressed further below.
When focusing on the quality of Missouri's forest resources for wood production, it is helpful to differentiate these resources into two broad categories -- growing stock and cull. Growing stock trees are live trees of commercial species that meet specified standards of size, quality, and merchantability. Rough, rotten and dead trees are excluded from this category. The growing stock volume in Missouri's forests in 1989 was 9 billion cubic feet. In addition to this amount, the state's forests also contain 4.8 billion cubic feet of trees (or portions thereof) that are unusable for industrial wood products because of rot, missing or dead material, form, or other defects. This cull material thus accounts for about 35% of the total standing volume in Missouri forests,5 with growing stock accounting for the other 65%. On a volume basis, this cull material exceeds that of any other state in the nation. Moreover, the total volume of cull trees on nonindustrial private lands in the state is more than six times greater than the total cull volume for all other ownerships (i.e., federal, state, industry) combined (Table 3).
A number of factors contribute to the above situation. Among the most significant is the combined effect of the relatively poor site quality of much of the Ozark forestlands and the cultural attitudes fostered over the years that led to ‘highgrading' -- i.e., harvesting only the best quality trees and ignoring other factors such as stand structure and composition -- influenced in part by the lack of a market for low-grade materials. Nonetheless, while cull material has little market value for traditional wood products, chip mills are capable of utilizing this low quality material for processing into inputs for pulp and paper operations. Thus these mills constitute a potentially viable market for cull
Table 3. Total and per acre volume of growing stock
and cull by ownership, Missouri, 1989
( Source: Hahn and Spencer 1991 )
material. This does not, however, imply that the mere potential for such a market is necessarily related to the kinds of forest practices undertaken to supply that market.
When considering timber growth and drain in the aforementioned areas impacted by the two chip mills, the figures in the top part of Table 4 depict the annualized difference between growth and removals of growing stock in the chip mill source areas. In the Mill Spring area, annual growth and removals totaled 88 and 38 million cubic feet, respectively, leaving a net annual growth of 50 million cubic feet. For the Scott City mill's source area, annual growth and removals totaled 62 million and 24 million cubic feet, respectively, yielding a net annual growth of 38 million cubic feet. Thus when considering the growing stock volume on all timberlands in both mill sourcing areas (taken individually), there existed a substantial excess of growth over removals as of 1989.
These figures have been adjusted, however, to more accurately reflect growing stock on timberlands that are actually accessible and otherwise available for marketable wood products. In this analysis, two basic adjustments were applied to the net annual growth figures for each source area. First, the net annual growth figures were reduced by 45% to account for four factors that are presumed to significantly affect actual timber availability for chipping : a) the presence of species unsuitable for chipping, such as conifers, hickory, blackjack oak, etc.; b) slopes greater than 40% grade; c) acres
| Table 4. Relevant data on annual growth, removals, net
annual growth, and expected impact of chip mills on annual harvest
levels (Source : Shifley 1999a)
Growing Stock Missouri Mill Spring Area Scott City Area Growing stock volume 9 billion 3 billion 2 billion Annual growth
267 million 88 million
62 million Adjusted net annual growtha 23.1 million 19.3 million Projected annual removal Annual harvest from growing Increase in current annual __________________________________________________________ Cull material Mill Spring Area Scott City Area Current cull volume
1026 million
517 million Projected annual removal for chips 6.67 million 12 million Estimated supply of chips from cull __________________________________________________________ a Adjustments to net annual growth and cull volume involve 2 stages : 1) a 45% (Mill Spring) or 39% (Scott City) reduction for unusable species, riparian and road buffers, slopes greater than 40%, and public lands, which are assumed to be dedicated to non-timber uses; and b) a further reduction of 16% (from the above adjusted figures) for source area overlap. |
dedicated to riparian and road buffers; and d) all public lands within the two mill sourcing areas. In this latter regard, it was assumed that both federal and state public lands are dedicated more directly
towards meeting resource priorities other than timber production, although the latter is certainly not excluded. Secondly, the growing stock available for harvest remaining after this first set of adjustments was further reduced by 16% to avoid double-counting growing stock volumes in the area where the Mill Spring and Scott City sourcing areas overlap (Figure 1). The overall results for adjusted net annual growth of growing stock in each of the sourcing areas as of 1989 are 23.1 million cubic feet and 19.3 million cubic feet for Mill Spring and Scott City, respectively.
When comparing the above figures for adjusted net annual growth in the two source areas to the anticipated wood utilization of the two mills, the following picture emerges. For the Mill Spring facility, projected production at average capacity6 will require about 200,000 tons of wood per year at the gate. The Scott City facility will require 350,000 tons per year (again noting that not all of the source area for this mill is in Missouri). When relating adjusted net annual growth of growing stock and anticipated wood demands by the mills, it is evident from Table 4 that, for the Mill Spring area, to supply the 200,00 tons projected demand for wood exclusively from growing stock, annual harvest will increase by 18%, from 38 to 45 million cubic feet. To supply the Scott City facility with its expected annual demand of 350,000 tons of wood, again with the entire source being growing stock, annual harvest in its source area will have to increase by 49%, from 24 to 36 million cubic feet.
The lower portion of Table 4 presents an overview of the estimated available volume of cull material in the source areas (i.e., within a 60-mile radius) of the chip mills at Mill Spring and Scott City.
As noted earlier, cull material is not suitable for industrial wood products and thus not accounted for as part of the growing stock. Estimated available cull volumes, after adjusting total volumes in the
same manner as was applied to annual growth (Table 4), are 14.2 and 7.9 million tons for the Mill Spring and Scott City source areas, respectively. At the expected rate of wood utilization by the mills, this translates into a 71-year supply of chips for the Mill Spring facility and a 23-year supply
for the Scott City mill. Although all of this available cull volume will certainly not be harvested, these figures do suggest that there is a significant amount of low quality wood resource in the vicinity of the two mills to supply their expected demands for wood for at least two decades, in the case of the Scott City Mill, and substantially longer for the Mill Spring facility. The extent to which such resources will actually be utilized by the chip mills is separate question which the above figures are not intended to answer.
Additional Scenarios for Projecting Growth and Drain
The above methodology provides an analysis of the impacts of Missouri's two high capacity chip mills on timber resources in the source areas surrounding the mill sites (Shifley 1999a). Given that the next comprehensive statewide forest inventory will not be completed for several years, additional analyses were conducted which included a series of scenarios projecting wood utilization by the two chip mills and impacts on growing stock in the source areas over the next several decades (Shifley 1999b). One set of scenarios was based on the above ‘baseline' analysis of 1989 inventory data, to which additional more restrictive assumptions regarding wood availability were applied. A second set of scenarios, covering the period from 1989 to 2030, was based not on the 1989 statewide inventory data, but on periodic data on wood products production in Missouri.
Alternative Scenarios Based on 1989 Statewide Inventory Data. The first part of this supplementary analysis employed the same methodology for assessing timber supply in the mill source areas as described above. These scenarios examined how results from the baseline analysis would differ if there were: a) increasing wood demands and associated harvest levels generated by the chip mills; and b) a reduction in the volume of wood available to the mills due to landowner unwillingness to sell timber. In addition, common to both of these sets of scenarios was the assumption that land comprising buffer areas around streams was increased to include both permanent and intermittent streams, and the aggregate result was to reduce the total land available for timber harvest (and thus the associated wood volume) by 5%, as opposed to the 1% aggregate reduction for stream buffers used in the baseline analysis.
One set of scenarios started with the baseline analysis described above and incorporated potential increases in the demand for wood chips by the two mills. Mill Springs demand levels were increased from 200 to 350, 600, and 1000 thousand tons; and Scott City levels from 350 to 600 and 1000 thousand tons. The 5% volume reduction for stream buffers was also included in each of these four scenarios. As in the baseline analysis, results of these additional assumptions may be interpreted both for situations where the entire supply of chips is obtained from growing stock and for where it is derived exclusively from cull material. For growing stock, the differences from using these additional assumptions would be manifest in the amount of growing stock remaining after demands for both chips and other wood products were satisfied. (This ‘residual' net annual growth is not depicted as a separate entry in Table 4.) For cull material, the difference produced by incorporating the scenario assumptions would show up in the ‘estimated supply of chips from cull at anticipated rate of utilization' -- i.e., the last entry in Table 4.
Not surprisingly, the results of this set of scenarios indicate that as utilization of chips by the two mills increases, the ‘residual' annual net growth in growing stock in the source areas declines. What the scenarios provide, however, is a picture of how adjusted net growth (i.e., available growth - removals) declines with different rates of wood utilization by the chip mills. Thus, for example, when projected annual removals for chips are increased from 200 thousand to 600 thousand tons for the Mill Spring area, the residual net annual growth declines from 488 to 88 thousand tons. Similarly, when projected chip removals are increased from 350 to 600 thousand tons for the Scott City area, the residual net annual growth declines from 207 thousand to a negative 43 thousand tons. That is, for the Scott City area, such a change in demand would lead to an overall excess of removals over growth. The implications of this set of scenarios is that if wood demand for chips increases significantly, and if all the wood for chips is taken from the growing stock, then the residual annual net growth -- i.e., that remaining after all removals, including for chips, have been accounted for -- will decline, and more rapidly so with greater volumes of removals for chips. Since there was less timber resource to begin with surrounding the Scott City mill, total harvest will exceed annual net growth sooner in the Scott City area than for Mill Spring as the wood demanded by the mills increases.
From an alternative perspective, if the chip mills demands were met exclusively through cull material (as opposed to growing stock), and the same increases in annual removals for chips occurred (i.e., from 200 thousand to 600 thousand tons for Mill Spring and from 350 thousand to 600 thousand tons for Scott City), the supply of cull material to meet the Mill Spring demand would decrease from 64 to 23 years, and to meet the Scott City demand, from 22 to 13 years.
A second set of four scenarios is identical to the above, but adds an additional constraint that reduces land available for timber harvest and thus wood supply to meet total demand (i.e., for chips and other wood products). In these scenarios, it is assumed that, for whatever reasons, private landowners are more reluctant to sell their timber than assumed above and, as a result, the land base (and associated wood volume) available for timber harvest is reduced by 20%. With the same increases in levels of chip demands as considered above, and with only 80% of the land base available, it is not surprising that the above trends are accelerated.
It is important to note that the likelihood of the assumptions regarding increases in wood demand (and associated chip removals) and the decrease in private land availability actually happening is an entirely different question from the information provided by these scenarios. The latter are intended to provide a picture of how the results of such events occurring would be translated into changes in two critical variables -- the ‘residual' annual net growth for growing stock in the source areas when the demands from chip mills are fully accommodated; and the supply of chips from cull material available to the mills if these demands were accommodated exclusively through the use of cull materials in the source areas. With the above kinds of information available, attention may focus more directly on the reasonableness of the assumptions.
Alternative Scenarios Based on Wood Products Data. In the past five decades, a number of timber products output surveys have been conducted in Missouri (1946, 1958, 1969, 1980, 1987, 1991, 1994, and 1997). These surveys compiled information from primary processing plants (e.g., sawmills, etc.) to estimate the volume of wood products produced in the state. Over time the detail of these reports has been enhanced; and beginning in 1980, some statistics became available for individual inventory units in the state. However, unlike the 1989 statewide forest inventory, which indicated where trees were harvested, the timber product output reports have been based on where trees are processed into products. The source areas for individual mills are unknown, so it is impossible to link timber product output data back to the specific forest locations in which harvests occurred in the same way that can be done using the statewide forest inventory data. In addition, not all harvested trees necessarily end up as products. Some are left in the woods, and some become mill residue. Moreover, some cull trees that are too short to qualify as growing stock (e.g., rough culls) are still harvested and made into products. Trees from fence rows and other non-forest locations may also become ‘forest products.' Conversely, trees that are cut for firewood or for land clearing never become forest products, even though they are tallied as removals in the statewide on-the-ground forest inventory.
Despite the above technical problems in matching timber product output reports and forest inventory results, the long-term trends in timber product outputs do indicate the general rate at which wood utilization is increasing or decreasing over time (Figure 2). This information on the rate of change in timber product outputs can be used to project proportional changes in future removals. Likewise, past rates of forest growth derived from forest inventory data can be used to project future rates of forest growth. However, all such projections must be viewed with a full understanding of the associated assumptions. The longer the projection period, the less likely the projected outcomes will be correct. Much like forecasts of the weather or the economy, this is true of any model used to forecast the future.
Based on the wood products data described above, a set of 15 additional scenarios was constructed depicting possible long-term trends in timber resource availability over the period from 1989 to 2030. From this perspective, the critical questions addressed are as follows. Can Missouri forests meet the requirements for chip supply? Can Missouri forests do so while meeting the assumed increase in overall (non-chip) wood demand in the future? These are not the only important questions in the ‘chip mill issue;' they are, however, the ones that these projections are designed to address.
The scenarios based on wood products data incorporated combinations of the assumptions used in the previous inventory-based analysis. For all scenarios, the potentially available supply of wood was reduced by 29% for buffers, slopes, and unusable species; further reductions of 27% (Mill Spring) and 19% (Scott City) for unavailability of public lands as a timber source; and a 16% reduction for source area overlap. For each source area, several of the scenarios also included an additional 20% reduction of the available land base (and associated available wood supply) to reflect private landowners who did not want to sell timber. Finally, the scenarios include increasing levels of demand for chip by the two mills, ranging from 200 thousand to 1 million tons per year for the Mill Spring facility, and from 350 thousand to 1 million tons per year for the mill for the Scott City mill.
Given the inherent uncertainty in long-range projections, as well as the difficulties associated with using wood products data in place of on-the-ground inventory data in making projections, the implications of this analysis are tentative at best. However, they do reflect an educated estimate, using the best resource data available, regarding possible answers to the two key questions posed above. When focusing on growing stock (as opposed to cull material) as a potential source of chips, even with the most restrictive assumptions regarding the availability of private lands (e.g., reducing timber availability by 20% for owners who are not interested in harvesting timber), there is probably enough wood as growing stock to meet the 200 thousand ton annual demand for chips by the Mill
Figure 2. Timber product output in Missouri (1946-1997) and projections through 2030 based on the historical trend from 1980-1997, prior to the establishment of chip mills in Missouri. (Source : Shifley 1999b) ( Note: Actual timber product outputs over the next 30 years are likely to fluctuate rather than increase linearly.) |
Spring facility for at least the next two decades before residual net annual growth levels start to merit concern. For the Scott City facility, whose source area is only 31% timberland (as opposed to 58% for the Mill Spring source area), timber harvest has already exceeded growth on a percentage basis from 1992 - 1997. During that time growth increased by 2.3% per year, while harvest increased by 3.7% annually. Thus even with no chip mill, potential wood supply from growing stock is declining in this area. If all of the Scott City facility's annual demand for chips (350 thousand tons) were to be supplied from growing stock in its source area, residual annual net growth levels would likely become of concern in about 15 years. In both cases, but especially that of the Scott City mill, the sustainability of the forest resource in the source areas can obviously be greatly enhanced via the mills' utilization of the substantial volumes of cull materials within the forestlands surrounding the mills.
The analysis of scenarios can also shed some light on, while not answering completely, the question of additional chip mills locating in the state relative to potential wood availability. Thus, for example, if demand for chips in the source areas were to double, and the chips were obtained exclusively from growing stock, residual annual net growth in these areas would likely become negative within the next two decades, and more rapidly so in the Scott City source area. At present, this assumption regarding increase in demand is not very realistic; but, as noted earlier, the value of such projections in estimating what would likely happen under certain conditions is to allow more attention to be devoted to the assumptions themselves.
The above analysis also suggests that, in terms of wood supply, the location of any additional mills will be a vital consideration in terms of their possible effects on the forest resource. On a statewide basis, a very rough summary of the situation (derived from the data considered here) might proceed as follows. In Missouri, annual net growth of timber (i.e, growth - removals) is 150 million cubic feet. That figure may be reduced by 1/4 to account for private forestland owners who have no interest in selling timber, and to exclude riparian buffer areas. The resulting 112.5 million cubic feet net growth may in turn be reduced a further 50% to account for species unsuitable for chipping, exclusion of public lands, and potential source overlaps. This leaves 56 million cubic feet adjusted annual net growth statewide. Deducting the current estimated chip harvest (200 thousand tons for Mill spring and 350 thousand tons for Scott City = 18 million cubic feet) leaves approximately 38 million cubic feet statewide as the potential source of supply for any additional chip mills. If it could be inferred from the combined amount of annual demand for chips by the two existing mills (18.3 million cubic feet) that an ‘average' mill's annual demand would be half of that -- i.e., about 9 million cubic feet -- then , strictly in terms of growing stock spread all across the state, the standing growing stock could theoretically support four additional mills.7
The above considers every standing cubic foot of growing stock wood in the state -- from the northwest corner to the Bootheel. Purely from an economic procurement standpoint, this is clearly all not available for supplying chips. And, as noted earlier, many other factors are masked by statewide figures and many other considerations in addition to standing wood are relevant to the economic and environmental feasibility of additional chip mills in Missouri. It is also clear that location is and will remain a major factor as to whether several or no additional chip mills could enter the state while ensuring the sustainability of Missouri forests. It is clear from this analysis, for example, that -- in terms of growing stock -- locating another mill in the overlapping source areas of the two existing mills would not bode well in terms of sustainability of growing stock from a net annual growth perspective. Potential impacts become harder to assess as we move away from the source areas. On an overall basis, many of these questions regarding viable source areas, economic feasibility, environmental soundness, and so on, could be -- and are, in some states -- addressed in the permitting process when mills first apply for clearance to locate in a state. Moreover, the above discussion has pertained primarily to growing stock volumes as a potential source of chips. Availability and likely utilization of cull material for chips are also critical aspects to be considered. Regarding the former, Missouri clearly has an ample supply; so attention turns to the latter question of whether this material is likely to be utilized.
In summary, understanding the availability of standing volume -- both growing stock and cull material -- is one key ingredient for arriving at viable policy alternatives that encourage sound utilization of Missouri's forest resources in a sustainable manner. But all that is standing is not necessarily economically available (even after reductions for the assumptions used above); and what is available will not necessarily be utilized. Factors affecting these other aspects of the ‘chip mill issue' are the focus of the following pages.
Forest Land Change Detection
Changes in the composition and structure of Missouri forestlands are at the heart of the question of the ecological and economic sustainability of the state's forest resource base. The USFS forest inventory and analysis data (FIA) provides important information in this regard -- collected from about 5600 points in forested landscapes in Missouri. But due to the density of the sampling, it is difficult to make inferences from this data for areas smaller than the county level. However, another technique for assessing changes in Missouri's forest land base is available that may complement the statewide forest inventory.
Satellite remote sensing (RS) is a methodology which can be used to classify areas on the basis of amount of biomass.8 Satellite RS systems record electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from target objects. The data produced is multi-spectral; sensors on the satellite collect information in six bands including, but extending beyond, the range of the human eye. The thematic sensor can ‘see' well enough to detect changes in forest cover with a high degree of accuracy. RS data for monitoring forest cover has a spatial resolution (i.e., grain or pixel size) of 30 meters. With this it is possible to produce scenes that measure about 185 kilometers on a side.
In this way, data or images can be used to establish a baseline for monitoring the area and location of change in the Missouri Ozarks. Remotely-sensed data yields a snapshot in time, which cannot be accomplished on the ground; it is not possible to sample large forest areas and provide an instant picture of the results. Using remotely sensed data, different kinds and intensities of harvests would appear differently in terms of colors of images. It can reveal that x acres of forest land is no longer forest land the next year, and it can pinpoint the location of those acres. However, such data may not be able to answer the question as to whether the land was harvested or bulldozed . What it does provide is location-specific information that the land was forested and now is not, based on the amount of biomass present.
Remotely sensed data also cannot directly reveal whether any growth has occurred on the site (e.g., via replanting or otherwise) until such growth reaches a certain size. Thus, for example, using satellite imagery alone, it would likely take three to five years to determine that after an area is cleared it is being allowed to grow back as forest land. When seedlings are just emerging and immediately after, their color and transparency are similar to that of grass. But after growing dense and tall enough, they exert a cooling effect on the micro-areas immediately around them; and this is perceived by the satellite sensors and expressed in different colored images
When used as a tool to understand the pattern and extent of timber harvesting across the landscape, the following picture of what RS data can do emerges. Consider, for example, the case where two scenes of same area are produced -- one from 1986 and one from 1992 Also assume there is 50,000 acres less forest in 1992. How would one determine how much of that 50,000 acres is pasture and how much of that land has been recently harvested and is in the process of re-growing a forest? It would not be possible to ascertain this directly from the 1992 scene. However, there are ways this data can be incorporated into such efforts to detect forest land change. On the one hand, with a continuing series of updated images, this could be monitored more closely. Another approach would be to select a random sample of those cleared areas (in the 1992 scene) and obtain a statistical measure of what percentage of them are pasture, regenerating forestlands, and so on.
This kind of data and information can also indirectly have a positive impact on how privately-owned forestland is managed. It can be very useful for public agencies in developing programs for private forestry that provide incentives for landowners to manage in ways that are both ecologically sound and financially beneficial. It allows agencies to have a better landscape picture, so that in identifying areas at risk (e.g., bottomland hardwood forests) they can better tailor programs in ways that would be appealing to those landowners. Other advantages of RS data are related directly to its value in conducting ecological assessments. Remotely sensed data can be used to assess key variables essential to understanding large-scale relationships essential to ecosystem health. Thus, for example, it is valuable for forest edge and interior detection that may be critical habitat factors for the viability of certain wildlife species. It is also used for characterizing features of watersheds that capture their role in important hydrological processes.
Remotely sensed data can be archived; it does not have to be analyzed immediately. Moreover, a data bank already exists for Missouri from the period when satellite orbits began (1971) through the present. Thus, for example, data for 60-mile radii around Mill Spring and Scott City between 1971 and 1999 may be accessed from the archives. Of course, satellite images must be purchased from the agency or organization controlling the satellite's operation. A new satellite has recently gone up, and the U.S. Geological Survey is controlling the policy for the data distribution from that satellite. While the revised cost structure is yet to be finalized, the current cost of RS imagery (i.e.,for a 185 km2 image for before any work is done with it) could range from $900 per image at a minimum (probably more) to $2500 at a maximum (likely not that high). Nonetheless, it can be obtained quickly and relatively cheaply versus any other technique for large areas. Moreover, results can be combined with other spatial data layers in a geographic information system (GIS) for analysis. Finally, data depicting forest cover and other land characteristics can be updated relatively quickly, given that the satellite passes over every sixteen days. In Missouri, the organization most closely involved with use of satellite imagery in the field of natural resources is the Missouri Resource Assessment Partnership (MORAP), which is based at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The organization is funded entirely through partnerships with state and federal natural resource agencies. MORAP data is stored on a USGS server at the Columbia Environmental Research Center.
Both the statewide forest inventory (FIA) and the remote sensing capabilities of MORAP provide important tools for enhancing the sustainability of Missouri forests. Their most effective use will, however, come not separately but as part of an integrated resource assessment package for monitoring the status of and patterns of change in the state's forestlands. With the improvements in FIA methodology, it will now be possible to inventory (via sample plots) one-fifth of the state's forest lands each year, thus reducing the overall inventory cycle to five years. Remotely sensed snapshots of large contiguous forestland areas provides and added dimension to the FIA data derived from sample plots, allowing for the monitoring of many important landscape-level ecological variables. Moreover, such images of areas within, for example, an individual county provide a valuable source of information on characteristics of smaller areas of forestlands, compensating to some degree for the rather limited ability to make inferences from FIA data to sub-county areas. In summary, some powerful tools are available for understanding and assessing the diverse forestlands of Missouri; the challenge remains that of combining their distinctive capabilities in the most effective way to ensure a sustainable forest resource base.
