New Hampshire Forest Resources Plan Revision -- Assessment 2010

Area of Focus
General Assessments

This Assessment Report is essentially a background paper designed to provide the best information available about the status of New Hampshire’s forests to facilitate a revision to the Plan with input from many stake holder groups. With assistance from the USDA Forest Service, the Division of Forests and Lands has decided to use the framework of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators as the basis for the Assessment report. The Criteria and Indicators used for this assessment are a series of 7 Criteria and 18 Indicators and associated data sources that the USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Area (NA) and the 20 State forestry agencies in the Northeastern Area Association of State Foresters (NAASF) developed for use in ongoing monitoring efforts in this region. In this way, subsequent use of the framework will yield comparable results within districts (geographic areas like the State of New Hampshire) or among districts. The report is structured directly around these 7 Criterion and 18 Indicators.

Related Links
New Hampshire Forest Assessment 2010

Indicators

  • Amount of land under forest certification programs
    Certification of forestry operations was developed to provide assurance to wood consumers/users that the operations are not destructive to forest ecosystems or nearby communities. There has been debate over whether or not certified operations are actually sustainable (e.g., allowing clear-cutting). One advantage of certified operations is that there may be more transparency about the types of operations.
  • Bird species population trends
    Birds naturally vary in population size in an area. This could be due to condition variations in the area, or due to variations in some other area where the birds spend part of their time. Trends in population size of rare, listed, or common birds can provide important information about the habitat quality and biodiversity of a particular place or type of place.
  • Capital expenditures by wood product manufacturers
    Locating wood product manufacturing requires a steady supply of wood and a trained, or trainable work-force. If wood product manufacturers invest in capacity a region/municipality, it is a sign that long-term employment in wood products industries is more likely.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Bulk density
    The bulk density of a soil is inversely related to its porosity and depends on the mineral composition of the soil.. For example, sandy soils will have low bulk density and high porosity, whereas clayey soils will have the opposite. Soils can become artificially compacted, which will change their bulk density and porosity.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Calcium/aluminum ratio
    The calcium/aluminum ratio in soils is one indication of the the risk of forest damage from aluminum stress and nutrient imbalances. The ratio can also be used as an indicator of forest changes over time in response to acidic deposition, forest harvesting, or other processes contributing to acid soil infertility.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Estimated bare soil
    Bare soil can naturally occur after natural disturbance and can occur as a result of artificial disturbance (e.g., logging). Bare soil is more susceptible to wind and water erosion.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Forest land adjacent to surface water
    Protecting soil and water condition often involves protecting the overlying vegetation. If they are of sufficient size, forests near streams (riparian forest) and other water-bodies can protect soils from eroding into these surface waters. Trees may also provide structure (from fallen trees) and nutrients (e.g., leaf matter) important for habitat and food for fish and invertebrates.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Forest land per watershed
    This is a simple measure of the amount of forested land in a defined type of watershed. This could be a river basin or a smaller watershed unit, depending on how the term watershed is defined.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Impaired stream miles by percent of forested watershed
    Agencies responsible for regulation of water quality can declare streams "impaired" if they do not meet ecological and other standards needed to provide clean water and other ecosystem services. A high proportion of impaired streams may indicate that there are actions in a watershed causing these impairments.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Soil carbon
    Global carbon cycling includes storage and release of organic and inorganic carbon from soil, which is the largest reservoir of carbon. Carbon is added to soil primarily through decomposition of dead plant material. Carbon is lost from soil through runoff and oxidation of soil carbon by chemical and biological processes. Because of its size, the soil carbon pool is one of the most important considerations in modeling carbon cycling as a cause of and in response to climate change.
  • Conservation and Maintenance of Soil and Water Resources: Soil pH
    Soils are home to minerals and organic compounds that individually or in reaction with other compounds maintain certain pH in the soil. Soil pH can be permissive to certain plants and prohibitive to others.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Age class by forest type group
    Non-plantation (even-aged) forests are typically composed of trees occupying a range of age classes, from seedlings, to trees many decades or centuries old. The number of trees in each age group varies with time since last disturbance, rate and distribution of logging, and competition among trees. Different types of forests will have different ranges of age classes and distribution of trees among age classes.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Area by forest type group
    An important characteristic of forests is the proportion of a region that is composed of different types or groups of types of forest. Forest type is typically determined by dominant plant species or other taxonomic group.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Forest density
    Forests naturally vary in density (i.e. number of trees per unit area). The impact of this density will vary with climatic conditions, soils, tree age/size class, and tree type.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Forest land conversion
    Converting forest lands to other land cover types (e.g., rural residential) results in loss of plant and animal biodiversity. These effects result from direct loss and fragmentation of habitat.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Fragmentation
    Fragmentation is the breaking up of a landscape into smaller pieces by natural processes (e.g., fire, plant community variation) or by artificial processes (e.g., logging, dam construction) or features (e.g., roads). Fragmentation can cause a wide range of ecological harms, from species endangerment and local extinction to disruption of natural processes (e.g., natural flooding).
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Parcelization: distribution/average size of private land
    Subdivision of large private parcels into smaller ones can lead to an increasing diversity of decisions on how to use a landscape and an increase in the number and distribution of artificial barriers (e.g., houses, roads) and human population. One of the first steps in permitted natural land development is subdivision of parcels (covered under the Subdivision Map Act), which can then be zoned and developed further. This land division and development negatively impacts biodiversity.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Population
    Human population size in an area can indicate potential impacts from human infrastructure (e.g., roads) and activities (e.g., driving). Residential development often introduces weeds, domestic animals, pesticides, and human physical presence into areas that may have previously had little of these types of disturbance.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Reserved forest land
    Setting land aside from development and extraction is a classic method for protecting biodiversity and habitats. The effectiveness of this strategy depends on the amount and distribution of reserved forest.
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity: Size class by forest type group
    The maintenance of a wide range of size classes of trees and especially large trees can help to protect biodiversity in an area. Different tree species will vary in size compared to each other and may also vary naturally in the distribution of proportion of trees in each size class.