Proceedings - Biomass South 2008

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Bill Burkman, USFS, Forest Inventory and Analysis, Southern Research Station, Knoxville, TN.

Bill Burkman has been the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program Manager for the US Forest Service, Southern Research Station (SRS) FIA Unit in Knoxville, TN since November 2004. Since the 1930’s, the National FIA Program has been conducting inventories on US forests tracking forest extent, inventory volumes, health, vitality and contributions to the national and global timber supply. Mr. Burkman received his BS in Forest Management from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point and his MS in Forestry from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He has been a member of the Society of American Foresters since 1976. Mr. Burkman has previously held positions as Research Technician with University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and as a Quality Assurance Specialist with the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program – Forest Response Program in the 1980s. With the US Forest Service, he has worked as a forester in the Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry Forest Health Protection unit in PA; as the program manager for the SRS’s Forest Health Monitoring Program in Asheville, NC; and the group lead for data collection at the former North Central Research Station FIA unit in St. Paul, MN.


The South's Wood Supply or What Can FIA Data Say About Biomass Availability?

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program and Forested Biomass Information The Southern Research Station (SRS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program conducts the continuous forest census for the 13 southern states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. This inventory activity is accomplished in a collaborative manner with the southern states’ forestry organizations and is a component of the National FIA Program. The FIA program collects, analyzes, and reports information on the status and trends of America’s forests. FIA information answers questions such as how much forest exists, where it exists, who owns it, and how it is changing. In addition, the FIA data is used to determine how the trees and other forest vegetation are growing, how much has died, and how much has been removed. Because of the importance of wood-using industries and forest values to the southern US economy, resource sustainability must be continually assessed. Data and information are available through traditional sources such as reports and publications and the FIA interactive web site which will allow users to query the FIA database to answer their own questions. Within the context of biomass availability, FIA data can be used to provide population estimates of biomass with known levels of statistical reliability. The biomass data from FIA can be partitioned by species, diameter class, live or dead status, merchantable or non-merchantable status, and other aspects of FIA data. FIA plot data also have GPS coordinates which can allow for spatial representation and analysis by location. This biomass information can then be combined with yield information from biomass generation data for potential energy output.

Notes:

Thanks to Sarah Ashton, Rachel Cook, Lindsey Hannum, James Jeuck, Liwei Lin, James McCarter, Susan McIntyre, and Mark Megalos for providing notes and summaries for presentations.


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