Rural FIA

The U.S. Forest Service’s inventory programs have been in continuous operation since 1930. Then known as the “Forest Survey,” this program completed periodic rural forest inventories for all the lower 48 states by the 1960s. The Forest Survey was later renamed in the mid-1970s as the “Renewable Resource Evaluation” and then “Forest Inventory and Analysis” in the mid-1980s. Recent notable events in the FIA program include:

• 1980s: USFS forest inventories were conducted under the Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program along with the FIA program under different plot designs over a national grid system, collecting data periodically at plots (uneven plot remeasurement intervals)
• 1992: CSFS assists the USFS with measuring FHM plots in Colorado
• 1995: FIA adopts the 4-point plot design of the FHM program
• 1999: FIA merges with the FHM program and starts the transition to an annual inventory of plots into the early 2000s (each plot remeasured every 10 years in the Rocky Mountain region)
• 2002: Annual inventory begins in Colorado; with CSFS staff conducting data collection
• 2011: Annual inventory begins in Wyoming; with CSFS staff conducting data collection

  2017: CSFS begins Urban FIA data collection in Colorado cities

Traditionally, the USFS inventory programs were conducted in a rural setting. However, with the provisions set forth by the 2014 Farm Bill, an additional component accounting for urban forests was added. The decision to incorporate urban forests into the inventory will help provide a more holistic understanding of our nation’s forest resources and the benefits they provide to almost every facet of our lives. FIA also implemented inventory programs for interior Alaska, Hawaii, and island territories of the United States in 2014.

More information on the history of the FIA Program: FIA: In Context and A History of the Forest Survey in the United States 1830-2004.