Forest—Type Groups of the United States

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the Forest Service conducts annual inventories across all land in the United States.

FIA reports on the status and trends in forest area; in tree species, size, and health; in tree growth, mortality, and removals; in wood production and utilization; and in forest land ownership.

FIA data is used to create and evaluate local and national policies; allow for measuring land use change; implement and monitor sustainable practices; estimate tree biomass and forest carbon; aid in wildfire prediction models; and monitor invasive species and forest pests.

Forest types are made up of distinct assemblages of plant species. Certain tree species are often found together in natural communities, along with understory plants that are distinctive to the composition of the tree canopy. This map of FIA forest-type groups was produced by modeling the relationship between the abundance of various tree species found on FIA field plots and assorted environmental characteristics associated with those plot locations, such as climate, topography, and vegetation indices derived from moderate-resolution satellite imagery.

Courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

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