Title: Hurricane Rita
1 Hurricane Rita
Timber Damage Assessment
2Initial Map of Potential Damage (SRS)
3Texas 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
4Timber Damage Map
5TFS Forest Inventory Analysis Team
6Timber Damage Field Operations
- 10 Texas Forest Service Forest Inventory
Analysis crews worked in the field September 28
29 - 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
7Timber Damage Field Plot Locations
8Results 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
9Results 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
10Results 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)
11Timber Damage Results by County
12Timber Damage Results by Ownership
13Putting 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)
14Potential 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
15- Texas Forest Service
- College Station, TX
- http//texasforestservice.tamu.edu
Texas Forestry Association Lufkin,
TX http//texasforestry.org