Forest ownership in the conterminous United States circa 2017: distribution of eight ownership types - geospatial dataset

This geospatial dataset depicts ownership patterns of forest land across the conterminous United States. Eight ownership categories are modeled, including three public ownerships: federal, state, and local; four private categories: family, corporate, Timber Investment Management Organization (TIMO) and Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), and other private (including conservation organizations and unincorporated associations); and Native American tribal land. The data are modeled from Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) points from 2012-2017 and the most up-to-date publicly available boundaries of federal, state, and tribal lands.
These data are intended to support national- and regional-scale planning and analyses involving spatially explicit distribution and patterns of forest ownership. These data are not intended or recommended for subregional- or local-scale planning or analyses. Map accuracy varies between ownership categories and regions, limiting its use for local or specific decision making.
A corresponding Research Map (RMAP) has been produced to cartographically portray this dataset (Sass et al. 2020; https://doi.org/10.2737/NRS-RMAP-11). Three previous data publications also model forest ownership types across the conterminous United States. Nelson et al. (2010) depicts public and private forest ownership, and differentiates corporate from other private ownership. Hewes et al. (2014) differentiates three public ownership categories (federal, state, and local) and three private ownership categories (family, corporate, and other private). Hewes et al. (2017) depicts these six categories as well as tribal lands. This dataset is updated with recently available data and differentiates a new private ownership category: Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which are presented as a combined category.