Managing the Forest Landscape: Exploring the Quantitative Interplay Between Forestland Patches, Areas and Landowner Numbers in Counties from Alabama, USA

Abstract

Forestlands provide timber resources and valuable ecosystem services. To better manage forest landscape and develop policies, it is important to quantify the relationships between the number of forestland patches, patch areas, and landowner numbers. By using integrated analysis of information about the forestlands in 17 counties in Alabama, USA, similar scaling relationships are determined in the forestland patch quantity, areas, and owner numbers across various patch-size classes. Forestlands on individual properties of up to 50 acres cover about 59% of patch number and 21% of total area, encompassing 77% of landowner numbers. In Alabama, few private landowners have more than 500 acres of forestland. Similar relationships between different sizes of forestlands and the accumulated percentages of patch quantity, areas, and landowner numbers exist. These distribution relationships can be described by quadratic and power functions. A significant correlation exists between forestland prices and the exponents of these scaling relationships in forest patch numbers, total areas, and landowner numbers across counties. These results provide a new understanding of the distribution of forestland in Alabama. The implication is that an economic approach (e.g., adjusting forestland prices or taxes) may help to better manage the remaining forest landscape and develop conservation policy in this region that could be used to reduce forest fragmentation.