Forest Vegetation Simulator keyword component (KCP) files associated with the compendium of silvicultural treatments for forest types in the United States

The national silviculture compendium is the first-ever compendium of silviculture treatments that cover most commercially operable forest types in the United States, built with input from a national team of silviculture experts from each National Forest System Region and Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. The compendium contains 240 silvicultural treatments, and 266 associated keyword component files (KCP) that are used with the Forest Service-supported Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), covering all regions and most commercial forest types in the United States in 2020. The treatments are based on current national forest plans and objectives but are relevant to other forested lands with similar conditions and management objectives. In part, the silvicultural compendium provides plausible real-world treatments to be used by planners, modelers, for training purposes (e.g., National Advanced Silviculture Program), and by others needing to simulate management-driven treatments with validated silvicultural parameters defined by silviculture experts from each region. Currently, KCP files for Regions 1-6 are available (Regions 8, 9 and 10 will be added as they are finalized). This data publication also includes information files such as a complete description of the 8 main treatment types and a list of each national forest and their organization code and region. Also included is a crosswalk between the KCP files and vegetation characteristics which can be used to apply KCPs to stands within each national forest in the United States, assigning treatments by biophysical setting, NVC and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) cover type is included. Additionally, a table documenting a broad potential application of KCP files to appropriate National Vegetation Classifications (NVC) that are not represented in the compendium but exist within a given national forest is provided. This list of treatments by NVC and forest can be used to assign treatments to areas that are otherwise unassigned treatments within the compendium.
The rapid pace of environmental and socioeconomic change poses a considerable challenge to managing for resilient and productive forests for the remainder of the 21st century. Nuanced management priorities will continue to evolve but the current challenges to address climate change, wildfires, insects and diseases, and invasive species will remain, and will require science-based and often active forest management to achieve resilient and productive forests. The national silviculture compendium was designed for use in large-scale modeling of forest treatments with potential application on over 300 million forested acres in the United States. Treatments are not intended to replace site-specific information or local expertise for actual on-the-ground plans but are generalized treatments that include parameters that are plausible for an identified objective, current condition, and desired condition. And although not intended to cover every conceivable situation, the silvicultural treatments were developed within the context of biophysical settings and forest types and address most of the conditions and objectives that prevail in each region across the country. Management needs that are addressed include forest restoration, fuel reduction, insects and disease resilience, timber production, wildlife habitat improvement, and many others. Moreover, almost all of the prescriptions were designated as improving multiple management objectives. The treatments in the compendium are limited to one entry, or the first entry within a multi-step process (referred to as a silviculture system). For example, the uneven-aged group selection treatment here includes species to retain, the percentage of stand in harvested groups, the size of the groups, the residual density of the matrix, as well as other parameters, but it does not specify the length of the cutting cycle. The primary objective of the silviculture compendium is to test the effectiveness of meeting landscape, regional, and national goals in the short term (3 to 5 years) by simulating real-world silvicultural treatments used presently, which are also socially acceptable, ecologically viable, economically desirable, and consistent with regional and forest-level standards and guidelines.
For more information about these data, see Schuler et al. (2024). These data were published on 07/20/2023. On 06/04/2024, data for Region 4 were added along with minor metadata updates.