Forest health monitoring: Southeast loblolly/shortleaf pine demonstration interim report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development is conducting an Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) with other federal agencies to establish the status of and trends in the ecological health of the Nation's natural resources. The forest component of EMAP is a multiagency effort referred to as Forest Health Monitoring (FHM). The FHM program conducted a two year demonstration study to test a suite of indicators considered important in assessing forest health. The study is referred to in this report as the Southeast Loblolly/Shortleaf Pine Demonstration, or SE DEMO. The interim report describes the results from the first year of the SE DEMO. The use of such data is encouraged by EMAP to foster a better understanding of the anticipated performance of an indicator prior to large investments in funding for field research. These data were used to the extent possible to determine the current status of each indicator with respect to the six criteria.