Hurricane Rita

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Hurricane Rita
Timber Damage Assessment
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Initial Map of Potential Damage (SRS)
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Texas Forest Service Aerial Survey

• Aerial recon began Monday, September 26 with
  mapping of outer damage boundary
• Refined map with 4 damage zones produced on
  Tuesday night, September 27

NE
SE
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Timber Damage Map
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TFS Forest Inventory Analysis Team
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Timber Damage Field Operations

• 10 Texas Forest Service Forest Inventory
  Analysis crews worked in the field September 28
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• 222 plots taken over 2 days
• Fuel, lodging, and transportation issues
• Crews collected
• Percent damaged pine and hardwood
• Percent affected pine and hardwood
• GPS coordinate
• Forest stand type
• Forest stand age
• Forest stand density

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Timber Damage Field Plot Locations
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Results of Timber Damage Assessment

• Field data was applied to current FIA data on
  September 30 to estimate
• Total value damaged only timber
• 462 million
• Total value damaged affected timber 833
  million
• Damaged mortality, salvage needed
• Affected mortailty not imminent, salvage may or
  may not be needed

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Results of Timber Damage Assessment

• Field data was applied to current FIA data on
  September 30 to estimate
• Total volume damaged timber
• 533 million cubic feet
• Total volume damaged affected timber 967
  million cubic feet

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Results of Timber Damage Assessment

• Field data was applied to current FIA data on
• September 30 to estimate
• Total poletimber damage 1.5 million cords (1.2
  million cords affected)
• Total sawtimber damage 2.1 billion board feet
  (1.7 billion board feet affected)

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Timber Damage Results by County
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Timber Damage Results by Ownership
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Putting Damage in Perspective

• Volume of damaged timber (533 million cubic feet)
  is slightly less than the total volume of growing
  stock removals (harvests) in 2004 (645 million
  cubic feet)
• Volume of damaged affected timber (967 million
  cubic feet) is about 6 percent of the overall
  timber volume in East Texas (15.7 billion cubic
  feet)

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Potential Implications of Timber Damage

• Even greater need for increased reforestation
• Possible water quality issues from damage to
  Streamside Management Zones
• Greater understanding of more resistant forest
  stand ages and densities
• Long-term timber supply for economic development

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• Texas Forest Service
• College Station, TX
• http//texasforestservice.tamu.edu

Texas Forestry Association Lufkin,
TX http//texasforestry.org