Washington State Forest Land Database
What is the Forest Land Database?
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To better understand where family forests are located and who owns them, the Rural Technology Initiative at the University of Washington, the Family Forest Foundation, and the Washington Farm Forestry Association, with funding from the USDA Forest Service, are creating a statewide parcel-based forest land database.
Enabled by geographic information system (GIS) technologies, the Washington State Forest land Database will set the foundation for analysis of the family forest demographic through the development of an interactive database of forested lands.
Such a dataset will facilitate the assessment of family forest impacts on local and state economies, and provide information on potential challenges and opportunities that family forest owners face in marketing their forest products and environmental services.
Anticipated Benefits
* Spatial distribution and numbers of forest lands by ownership types
* Land use planning, zoning, and forest land relationships analysis
* Framework for quantification of environmental services
* Effectiveness monitoring for Endangered Species Act
* Watershed analysis
* Fire risk distribution