Resource and Market Projections for Forest Policy Development: Twenty-five Years of Experience with the US RPA Timber Assessment

Long-range models that include product and resource detail are essential to meaningful analysis of both industry and resource sustainability. Taking this as it’s central argument, this book provides essential reading to anyone interested in projecting the future of either the forest products market and/or the forest resource conditions. It is aimed at policy makers, model builders, researchers and graduate students who are building or using forest sector models, as well as at forest industry managers and analysts.

While focusing on a specific modeling system – the US Timber Assessment models – the authors highlight the general elements that might comprise a forest-sector market model of any country or region. Approaches to policy analysis are also general and equally applicable to both national and multi-national forest policy development outside the US – particularly in relation to on-going efforts to formulate national programs of sustainable forestry.

The text provides literature surveys on relevant modeling issues and policy concerns, and demonstrates the application of the modeling system using a "base case" 50 year projection and a small set of scenarios to illustrate, for example, the effects of changes in public harvest policies, global change, variations in investments in silviculture, and globalization.

Darius Adams and Richard Haynes are widely recognized as leading experts in the forest sector modeling field.