Forest ownership in the conterminous United States circa 2022: distribution of seven ownership types - geospatial dataset

This geospatial dataset depicts ownership patterns of forest land across the conterminous United States circa 2022. Seven forest ownership categories are included, including three public ownerships: federal, state, and local; two private categories: family and corporate (including not-for-profit organizations and institutions); Native American tribal land; and unknown forest ownership. Two additional categories are also included, non-forest and water. The data are derived from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), third-party ownership data, and current up-to-date publicly available boundaries of public and tribal lands.<br>These data are intended to support national- and regional-scale planning and analyses – including small area estimation – involving spatially explicit distribution and patterns of forest ownership. Map accuracy varies between ownership categories and regions. This raster dataset combines harmonized land ownership classifications with landcover data to support national- and regional-scale planning and analyses, spatial modeling applications, and small area estimation. Ownership boundaries were derived from third party parcel data and federal spatial products, while landcover was informed by classified raster inputs such as the NLCD. The result is a continuous surface designed to enhance the spatial resolution and accuracy.<br>Four 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. Sass et al. (2020) includes additional data through 2017 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. For more details regarding these data, see Harris et al. (2021).