Northern Global Change Research Program

The Potential of U.S. Forest Soils to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect

English Unit Data

Table 1	Table 2
Table 2a	Table 3
Table 4	Table 4a
Table 5	Table 6
Table 6a	Table 7
Table 8	Table 9
Table 9a	Table 9b
Table 10	Table 11
Table 12	Table 13
Table 14	Table 15
Table 16	Table 17
Table 18	Table 18a
Table 19	Table 2 0
Table 21	Table 22
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Chapter 2: Current and Historical Trends in Use, Management and Disturbance of United States Forest Lands-English Unit Data
by Richard A. Birdsey & George M. Lewis

Table 1: Land Area of the United States by land use/land cover class, 1987 and 1997.

			Change
Land use/land cover	1987	1997	1987-1997
	(Million ac)

Conterminous U.S.:
Timberland	469.9	490.6	20.7
Reserved forest land	37.3	41.9	4.6
Other forest land	99.9	85.4	-14.5
Total forest land¹	607.0	617.8	10.8

Cropland	406.4	376.3	-30.1
Conservation reserve	13.6	32.7	19.1
Pasture land	127.4	119.5	-7.9
Range land	616.1	610.9	-5.2
Other rural land	49.3	50.5	1.2
Developed land	79.0	97.6	18.6
Total nonforest land²	1,291.8	1,287.5	-4.3

Sum of forest and nonforest	1,898.8	1,905.3	6.5
Total land³	1,887.9	1,887.8	-0.1
Unreconciled difference⁴	10.9	17.5	6.6

Alaska
Timberland	15.8	12.4	-3.4
Reserved forest land	5.2	9.8	4.6
Other forest land	108.0	105.1	-2.9
Total forest land	129.0	127.4	-1.6
Total nonforest land	232.9	238.1	5.2
Total land	361.9	365.5	3.6

Hawaii
Timberland	0.7	0.7	0.0
Reserved forest land	0.1	0.2	0.1
Other forest land	0.9	0.9	-0.1
Total forest land	1.7	1.7	0.0
Total nonforest land	2.4	2.4	0.0
Total land	4.1	4.1	0.0

United States:
Timberland	486.4	503.7	17.3
Reserved forest land	42.6	51.9	9.3
Other forest land	208.8	191.4	-17.5
Total forest land	737.7	746.9	9.2
Total nonforest land	1,527.1	1,528.0	0.9
Total land	2,264.8	2,274.9	10.1
¹ From Smith et al. 2001.
² From USDA NRCS 2001 (private land) and other public records.
³ From U.S. Census.
⁴ The sum of Individual sources of information does not equal the total land area because of differences in sampling, definitions, timing, and scope of data collection.

Users of these tables are kindly requested to cite their source:
Birdsey, Richard A.; Lewis, George M. 2002. Current and Historical Trends n Use, Management and Disturbance of United States Forest Lands. IN: Kimble, John et al. (eds.), The Potential of U.S. Forest Soils to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. XXX p.

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