CHAPTER 5. FOREST HEALTH MONITORING 

 PILOT PROJECT IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON 



Concerns and 

 Information Needs 



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Implementing the national Forest Health Monitoring Program. Step I: measure indicators of forest 

 condition from permanent field plots, aerial surveys, and other ground surveys; Step 2: analyze and 

 interpret the results for various user groups; Step 3: determine how existing and future information 

 can be used to answer specific (assessment) questions about forest ecosystems at national and 

 regional scales. 



The Forest Health Monitoring Program is a 

 multiagency national effort to monitor, assess, 

 and report on the long-term status, changes, 

 and trends in forest ecosystem health in the 

 United States. (See appendix 4 for definitions 

 of the kinds of forest health monitoring activi- 

 ties.) Data from permanent field plots and 

 other sources are used to prepare annual sum- 

 maries and periodic regional and national re- 

 ports on forest health for the general public, 



universities, resource managers, and Con- 

 gress. Some important national and regional 

 assessment questions that can be answered 

 from uniformly collected field data are: 



• What proportion of the Nation's forests has 

 reduced growth from past records? 



• Where are the risks of reduced growth in- 

 creasing or decreasing? 



• Is the scenic quality of forests decreasing 

 because of more observed damage? 



Monitoring — 66 



