Virginia's Eighth Forest Survey (2007)

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) staff has completed field work for the 8th Survey of Virginia’s Forests and moved on to the 9th Survey remeasurement.

The 2005 moving average is the latest summary data available (1984, 1992, 2001 and 2003 are also online). The 2006 moving average will be online by November, 2007. The hard-copy report of the 7th Survey/Virginia’s Forests, 2001, has been slowly winding its way through the publication process at the Southern Research Station in Asheville, NC and is slated for distribution in late 2007. An online version can be viewed and downloaded at: http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/28839.

It takes five years to complete a survey, divided into five “panels” or 20 percent of the plots to be measured annually. Once a panel is completed in the field, then processed and compiled by the Southern Research Station’s FIA unit in Knoxville, TN, a “moving average” of data for the latest five available panels is posted to the USFS “Mapmaker” Web application for users to run their own queries.

We started on the 7th Survey in 1997 and completed the fieldwork in early 2002, then moved on to the 8th Survey.

The charts and tables below provide a "snapshot" of Virginia’s forests, taken from the 2005 moving average data:

Forest Land Acreage

Of the 15,765,707 acres of forest land in 2005, 15,308,779 acres were classified as commercial timberland, while 456,928 acres were placed in the reserved and other forest land categories.

Forest inventory defined commercial timberland as having at least 10 percent stocked with trees and over an acre in size and available for management, while reserved forest land is removed from production legislatively (like national park or wilderness areas). Other forest land is incapable of producing at least 20 cubic feet of industrial wood annually per acre (used to be called “unproductive forest land”). “Forest land” is combined commercial timberland, reserved and other forest land. 2005 data shows 97 percent as commercial forest land, while three percent is classifed reserved and other forest land.

Forest Type Group

Oak-Hickory is the predominant forest type group in Virginia at 64 percent or 10,125,844 acres. Loblolly-Shortleaf Pine is second at 18 percent or 2,802,299 acres. If upland and bottomland hardwood types are combined with hardwood/pine types, they account for 78 percent of Virginia’s Forests.

Forest Ownership

Currently, NIPF and corporate (not forest industry) account for 79.9 percent or 12,220,631 acres. Forest industry lands have declined to five percent or 763,219 acres.

Stand Origin

While only 14 percent or 2,237,067 acres of Virginia’s forest land show evidence of planting, 59 percent of the acreage in pine and hardwood/pine types are planted.

Most Common Species

Statewide, by volume, yellow-poplar is the most common tree species in Virginia, followed by loblolly pine. However, if considered as a group, upland oaks make up, by far, the most volume in the state.

10 Most Common Species by Volume (MM cubic feet)

Ranking	State Wide	Vol.	Region 1	Vol.	Region 2	Vol.	Region 3	Vol.	Region 4	Vol.	Region 5	Vol.	Region 6	Vol.
1st	yellow-poplar	4,839	loblolly pine	1,566	loblolly pine	1,087	yellow-poplar	1,219	loblolly pine	950	chestnut oak	1,105	yellow-poplar	1,035
2nd	loblolly pine	3,881	red maple	350	yellow-poplar	737	chestnut oak	1,113	yellow-poplar r	589	yellow-poplar	1,065	chestnut oak	612
3rd	chestnut oak	3,008	sweetgum	336	white oak	566	white oak	823	white oak	489	white oak	533	red maple	469
4th	white oak	2,880	white oak	207	sweetgum	408	N. red oak	611	Virginia pine	335	Virginia pine	471	N. red oak	454
5th	red maple	2,151	yellow-poplar	193	red maple	296	red maple	399	sweetgum	244	red maple	414	white oak	261
6th	N. red oak	1,695	swamp tupelo	118	Virginia pine	283	Virginia pine	362	shortleaf pine	242	N. red oak	413	scarlet oak	238
7th	Virginia pine	1,512	baldcypress	65	beech	202	black oak	285	red maple	223	scarlet oak	320	E. white pine	227
8th	sweetgum	1,096	willow oak	57	S. red oak	181	scarlet oak	282	S. red oak	124	E. white pine	279	sugar maple	222
9th	scarlet oak	1,057	beech	55	scarlet oak	114	E. white pine	234	mockernut hickory	124	black oak	241	black oak	200
10th	black oak	968	blackgum	49	black oak	100	pignut hickory	200	chestnut oak	117	mockernut hickory	136	pignut hickory	142

Conversely, looking at number of stems, relatively shade-tolerant species like red maple and blackgum, have a large impact on the rankings, due their presence in the understory as saplings (Table 1 and Table 2).

10 Most Common Species by Number of Stems (million trees)

Ranking	State Wide	No.	Region 1	No.	Region 2	No.	Region 3	No.	Region 4	No.	Region 5	No.	Region 6	No.
1st	red maple	1,432	loblolly pine	446	loblolly pine	240	red maple	272	red maple	1,433	red maple	320	red maple	220
2nd	loblolly pine	1,026	sweetgum	282	American holly	203	blackgum	194	loblolly pine	1,026	blackgum	199	yellow-poplar	113
3rd	yellow-poplar	793	red maple	225	sweetgum	187	yellow-poplar	128	yellow-poplar	793	yellow-poplar	162	sugar maple	105
4th	sweetgum	700	American holly	138	red maple	149	chestnut oak	109	sweetgum	701	chestnut oak	156	sourwood	89
5th	blackgum	641	yellow-poplar	83	yellow-poplar	140	white oak	105	blackgum	642	Virginia pine	155	blackgum	68
6th	Virginia pine	492		56	Virginia pine	88	dogwood	95	Virginia pine	492	sourwood	107	chestnut oak	60
7th	white oak	446	hornbeam	50	white oak	74	Virginia pine	88	white oak	447	dogwood	100	beech	58
8th	dogwood	428	white oak	43	hornbeam	69	eastern redcedar	77	dogwood	429	E. white pine	84	sweet birch	51
9th	American holly	363	water oak	38	blackgum	57	pignut hickory	67	American holly	364	white oak	75	E. white pine	50
10th	chestnut oak	362	blackgum	36	beech	54	loblolly pine	53	chestnut oak	362	scarlet oak	50	dogwood	50

Growth and Removal Ratios

Statewide, for this 2005 snapshot, growth of growing stock exceeded removals annually by 155,961,221 cubic feet. Current volume of growing stock for Virginia for 2005 is calculated at 27,170,990,455 cubic feet. For this period, removals exceeded growth in Regions 1 and 2.

Last modified 2007-10-23