John Warner is the Urban District Forester at the W.G. Jones State Forest. Warner presented about Forest Ecosystem Values at the Heartwood Chapter meeting on Jan. 6 and at the Woodlands GREEN Lecture Series on Jan. 12, 2016.
Using the website at www.texasforestinfo.tamu.edu, Warner demonstrated how the application provides an estimate of the economic values provided by the forests of Texas. Currently, estimated values of forest ecosystem services are available for air quality, biodiversity, carbon, cultural and watershed services.
As an example, in Montgomery County there are 372,223 acres of forestland. Of this amount, 328,203 acres occur within rural areas, while 44,020 acres are found within urban and community areas.
- Value of Forest Biodiversity Services: $240.20 per acre per year or approx. $89.4 million annually
- Value of Forest Carbon Sequestration: $94.00 per acre per year or approx. $35.0 million annually
- Value of Forest Cultural Services: $1,177.40 per acre per year or approx. $438.3 million annually
- Value of Forest Watershed Services: $654.70 per acre per year or approx. $243.7 million annually
- Total Value of the Montgomery County Forest Ecosystem Services: $2,205.00 per acre per year or approx. $820.7 million annually
The results should be viewed as conservative estimates and are only part of a larger suite of ecosystem services provided by the forest within the area of interest. All values are reported in 2011 constant U.S. dollars.