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Family forest owners (FFOs) control a plurality of forestland in the United States, and the decisions these landowners make have a profound impact on the landscape. Most research on FFOs consists of cross-sectional studies, although many of these recognize the importance of capturing long-term trends to understand whether and how FFO attitudes, behaviors, and general characteristics are changing. We use data from the 2006, 2013, and 2018 iterations of the USDA Forest Service, National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS), with a bootstrapping approach to identify significant changes across these time periods among FFOs with 4+ hectares of forestland. Total FFO hectares decreased and FFO ownerships trended downward over the study period. A decreasing proportion of FFOs owned farms or homes near their forestland, harvested timber, or received advice. Demographic shifts include an increase in age and education level from 2006 to 2018, and an increase in FFOs of color from 2006 to 2013. Overall, we find a trend towards decreased traditional engagement and management and a slight increase in owning land for its amenity values. Understanding temporal trends in FFO characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors will help policymakers and forestry professionals inform and update their outreach, technical support, and financial assistance programs. Study Implications : Families and individuals hold more forestland than any other ownership group in the United States. We use nationwide survey data from 2006, 2013, and 2018 to determine whether and how these landowners are changing over time. The total forestland held by FFOs decreased between 2006 and 2018, and there has been a decrease in traditional forest management and engagement, such as through timber harvesting and nearby farm ownership. This study provides insights for policies, programs, and outreach and a foundation for future long-term comparisons of this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest ecosystems provide a suite of goods and services, including wood products as well as an array of ecosystem services and other non-timber goods and services. Despite an increasing emphasis on managing forests as holistic systems providing a portfolio of goods and services, silvicultural research has focused on maximizing production of commodities, particularly wood products. Although there has been investment in understanding how silviculture affects wildlife habitat, water resources, recreation, and other non-timber objectives, the emphasis has been on understanding these impacts as side-effects of a silviculture predicated on the production of wood. Commoditization theory provides a lens through which to understand the selection pressures that drive this emphasis on wood production. This article briefly reviews the historical role of commoditization in influencing how modern American silviculture has developed and highlights research needed to create silvicultural knowledge useful in managing for both commodity and noncommodity products. (Contains 1 note.)

While there is a large literature on how individual homeowners perceive location‐specific wildfire hazard, there is only one study specific to U.S. family forest owners. Using respondents from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey of family forest ownerships in the United States, we investigate the relationship between landowners' wildfire concerns and biophysical wildfire hazard across the contiguous United States. As a measure of long‐term conditions for high intensity wildfire, we use the USDA Forest Service's Wildfire Hazard Potential Index as our key variable of interest. We test six ways of aggregating Wildfire Hazard Potential using 1‐, 10‐, and 100‐mile (1.6, 16, and 160 km) radii buffers with linear and logistic specifications for hazard potential. Results show the log of Wildfire Hazard Potential is the best fit for modeling wildfire hazard concerns. Respondents in the western United States have a higher baseline level of concern but are not necessarily more sensitive to the hazard spectrum compared to respondents in the north. Respondents in the southern United States have a lower sensitivity to the hazard spectrum compared to respondents in the north and west. Using predicted probabilities at the means, we also compute regional prevalence ratios to compare the impact of biophysical wildfire hazard to the relative impact of other important variables. Various property and owner characteristics not related to biophysical hazard potential, such as emotion, receiving information about wildfire, and the presence of a house on the property are determinants of wildfire concern in some, but not all regions of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An estimated 10 million families, individuals, trusts, and estates own 39 percent of the forestland in the United States, excluding interior Alaska. Using segmented regression, the relationships between size of forest holdings and the attitudes and behaviors of these family forest ownerships were tested using data from the 2018 iteration of the USDA Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey. All 16 variables tested have significant relationships with size of forest holdings, and 13 have one or more breakpoints, ranging from 40 to 5,854 ac, where the relationships between the variables change. Timber as a reason for owning, timber harvesting activities, management plan, advice received, land certified, tax program participation, cost share, recreation, land tenure, recreation, taxes and heirs as concerns, land transfer, and income from forestland have positive relationships with size of forest holdings; resident ownership has a negative relationship; and wildlife as a reason for owning and owner age have mixed relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimated the potential economic value of recreational fisheries in lakes altered by acid pollution in the Adirondack Mountains (USA). We found that the expected value of recreational fisheries has been diminished because of acid deposition but may improve as lakes recover from acidification under low emissions scenarios combined with fish stocking. Fishery value increased with lake pH, from a low of $4.41 angler day-1 in lakes with pH < 4.5, to a high of $38.40 angler day-1 in lakes with pH > 6.5 that were stocked with trout species. Stocking increased the expected fishery value by an average of $11.50 angler day-1 across the entire pH range of the lakes studied. Simulating the future long-term trajectory of a subset of lakes, we found that pH and expected fishery value increased over time in all future emissions scenarios. Differences in estimated value among pollution reduction scenarios were small (<$1 angler day-1) compared to fish stocking scenarios (>$4 angler day-1). Our work provides a basis for assessing the costs and benefits of emissions reductions and management efforts that can hasten recovery of the economic and cultural benefits of ecosystems degraded by chronic pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a large literature on how individual homeowners perceive location-specific wildfire hazard, there is only one study specific to U.S. family forest owners. Using respondents from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey of family forest ownerships in the United States, we investigate the relationship between landowners' wildfire concerns and biophysical wildfire hazard across the contiguous United States. As a measure of long-term conditions for high intensity wildfire, we use the USDA Forest Service's Wildfire Hazard Potential Index as our key variable of interest. We test six ways of aggregating Wildfire Hazard Potential using 1-, 10-, and 100-mile (1.6, 16, and 160 km) radii buffers with linear and logistic specifications for hazard potential. Results show the log of Wildfire Hazard Potential is the best fit for modeling wildfire hazard concerns. Respondents in the western United States have a higher baseline level of concern but are not necessarily more sensitive to the hazard spectrum compared to respondents in the north. Respondents in the southern United States have a lower sensitivity to the hazard spectrum compared to respondents in the north and west. Using predicted probabilities at the means, we also compute regional prevalence ratios to compare the impact of biophysical wildfire hazard to the relative impact of other important variables. Various property and owner characteristics not related to biophysical hazard potential, such as emotion, receiving information about wildfire, and the presence of a house on the property are determinants of wildfire concern in some, but not all regions of the United States., (© 2021 The Authors. Risk Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Risk Analysis.)