year. Practically every acre of forest and range land 

 contributes to more than a single use at one time or 

 another and, in this sense, all forest and range lands 

 are multiple-use lands. For a variety of reasons, cer- 

 tain uses are restricted or prohibited on some lands. 

 But even these lands typically support uses other than 

 the one that is designated the major use. For exam- 

 ple, areas designated as wilderness and used primarily 

 for recreation provide wildUfe habitat and water, and 

 in some areas, grazing. 



Many of the Nation's forests and rangelands are 

 often termed "multiple-use" lands because no specific 

 use is automatically assigned dominance. Most of the 

 460 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land 

 Management and the 187 million acres of National 

 Forests are called multiple-use lands because no 

 overall use priorities have been established. Many, 

 perhaps most, private forest and range lands are also 

 used and managed for a variety of purposes. 



Second, conflicts among uses are often minimal for 

 common combinations and intensities of use and 

 management. That is, the use of an area for one pur- 

 pose does not usually preclude its use and value for 

 other purposes. As the intensity of management and 

 use increases, however, the potential for competition 

 among uses also increases; careful planning is re- 

 quired to integrate various uses on each area. Overall, 

 the use of forest and range lands can be maximized 

 under management that encourages multiple uses of 

 most areas. 



Third, the various uses of forest and range lands 

 must be considered in terms of quality, as well as 

 quantity. This is true for commodity uses, such as 

 timber and forage, and for noncommodity uses such 

 as recreation and wilderness. In the same sense that 

 small trees cannot substitute for large, high-quality 

 trees for some products, high-density campgrounds 

 are not a satisfactory substitute for remote areas, for 

 a primitive camping experience. Although the need 

 for qualitative as well as quantitative judgments is 

 well recognized, data that adequately reflect quality 

 differences in uses of forest and range lands are often 

 not available. 



Finally, it is important to understand that the 

 Nation's forest and range lands vary in their multi- 

 resource potentials to meet our needs for timber, 

 water, wildlife, forage, recreation, and other goods 

 and services. To relate uses to resource area poten- 

 tials, it is necessary to consider specific requirements 

 to meet specific product or service needs. For exam- 

 ple, water used for irrigation differs in its require- 

 ments from water used for drinking, swimming, or 

 fishing. Some bodies of water may serve all of these 

 purposes, others only one. 



In view of the large size of the United States and its 

 diversity in chmate and physical characteristics, forest 

 and range land resources are described for each of the 

 four major geographic sections used in this Assess- 

 ment — North, South, Rocky Mountains and Great 

 Plains, and Pacific Coast. 



Water Areas 



The water area in the United States, including 

 estuaries associated with the contiguous States, is 107 

 million acres, about 5 percent of the Nation's total 

 area (table 2.1). As with forest and range land, the 

 characteristics of this water area vary greatly as a 

 result of differences in size, type of water body 

 (stream, pond, bay, etc.), and source. 



Large lakes and streams account for nearly half of 

 the total water area, 50.9 million acres. This area 

 includes lakes and ponds at least 40 acres in size and 

 streams one-eighth of a mile or more in width. 

 Slightly more than half of the area of large lakes and 

 streams, 27 million acres, is in the humid eastern half 

 of the country. Within the East, the large water areas 

 tend to be geographically concentrated in the 

 northern-most tier of States, where glaciation has 

 formed numerous basins for lakes, and in the 

 southern-most tier of States where part of low-lying 

 land along the coasts and major rivers is covered with 

 water. 



Another 12.8 million acres, about a quarter of the 

 total large water area, is in Alaska. Most of the 

 remainder, some 10 milion acres, is in the contiguous 

 Western States. A substantial part of this area is 

 manmade reservoirs and impoundments, constructed 

 to store water for irrigation, electric power genera- 

 tion, and flood control. 



Small inland water areas total 8.1 million acres. 

 They include streams of less than one-eighth mile in 

 width and lakes and ponds between 2 and 40 acres in 

 size. The geographic distribution of these small water 

 areas is similar to that for the large water areas, gen- 

 erally for the same reasons — rainfall and landform. 

 Many of these small water areas are manmade, largely 

 the product of Federal and State programs concerned 

 with watershed protection and flood prevention. 

 Associated objectives include improving water sup- 

 plies and increasing water-based outdoor recreation 

 opportunities. 



The 47.6 million acres of other water area include 

 the Great Lakes; bays such as the Chesapeake, Dela- 

 ware, and San Francisco; sounds such as Long Island 

 and Puget; harbors such as New York; Straits of Juan 

 de Fuca and Georgia; and other coastal waters along 

 the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts except those in 



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