Forest Inventory and Analysis

Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessments

Background:

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 RPA, P.L. 93-378, 88 Stat. 475, as amended, directed the Secretary of Agriculture to prepare a Renewable Resources Assessment by December 31, 1975 and update in 1979 and each 10th year thereafter. FIA currently provides updates of assessment data every five years as required by the Agriculture Research, Extension and Education Reform Act of 1998 (Farm Bill). These assessments include "an analysis of present and anticipated uses, demand for, and supply of the renewable resources, with consideration of the international resource situation, and an emphasis of pertinent supply, demand and price relationships trends."

NEW! 2003 National Report on Sustainable Forests is available online

This is a national report on the state of US forests and the indicators of national progress towards the goal of sustainable forest management. FIA is a major provider of data to this report.

2002 Preliminary RPA data available for review

Preliminary 2002 Resources Planning Act (RPA) assessment tables are available for review in either pdf format or as a zipped file. These are preliminary statistics and may change before publication. To aid in the review and comparison, the preliminary 2002 tables are in the same order as the appendix tables found in 'Forest Resources of the United States, 1997'. The 1997 report may be viewed in pdf format with tables also provided in Excel format.

At the 2002 RPA website you can also query the preliminary resource data and timber product output (TPO) data using the Forest Service’s MAPMAKER program, and email comments and questions to us.

1997 RPA: The United States Forest Resource Current Situation