Forest product market projection data for the Southern Forest Outlook, 2020-2070

The last decade’s economic, social, and environmental changes have affected the production, consumption, prices, and trade of forest products in the United States, including in the U.S. South. The tabular data included within this publication are projections, 2020-2070, by scenario, quantifying the effects of changes in future societal and biophysical variables on the States of the U.S. South, the country, and the world on the forest sector. Potential changes are modeled with six scenarios that offer alternative trajectories for economic growth, climate warming, technology, and trade openness. Among these are two scenarios exploring (i) the accelerated adoption of mass timber products in construction and (ii) a large, hypothetical increase in trade restrictions. All scenarios are summarized in terms of changes in production, consumption, prices, and trade in forest products. For the U.S. South, projections are reported by Resources Planning Act Region and the two southern subregions (South Central, Southeast) and, for softwood and hardwood industrial roundwood production quantities and prices, softwood and hardwood lumber production quantities, wood pellet production quantities, and jobs for three forest sector North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) industries, also at the state level. Historical data by product category, 1990-2015, are also provided for context and comparisons. For each state, historical (1999-2019) and projected (2020-2070) data by scenario are provided for annual, Statewide totals of the number of jobs by three industries, including NAICS 113 (Forestry and Logging), NAICS 321 (Wood Product Manufacturing), and NAICS 322 (Paper Manufacturing).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service produces a periodic assessment of the conditions and trends of the Nation's renewable resources required by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974. The Southern Research Station of the Forest Service has assessed the potential future of the South's forests and forest sector, sometimes based in part on the RPA Assessment system. The Southern Forest Outlook focuses on the future of the region's wildfire, water resources, and forest product markets. The data offered here on the future of markets, by each of six scenarios, processed through the 2020 RPA Assessment's market model, FOROM, in interaction with the RPA Forest Dynamics Model, offering internally consistent projections of markets and forest resources for the South, the United States, and the world to 2070 for 20 wood products and, for this Outlook, jobs in the forest sector. Such data therefore can serve as the information for decision makers in the public and private sectors and researchers.
The FOrest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM) is a global recursive dynamic partial equilibrium model of the forest sector that recognizes Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment regions as separate producing, consuming, and trading market regions within a complete global market. FOROM is calibrated to a base year and projects future market variables of price, production, consumption, and trade of primary and secondary forest products across various socioeconomic development paths. Further captured in the model are predicted changes in forest area and forest stocks (inventory volumes) by management category. The model also incorporates changes to forest inventory under specifications of productivity changes as driven by climate change and greenhouse gas accumulations. For more information on the model, please refer to Johnston et al. (2021; https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-254). To read the 2020 RPA Assessment chapter on forest products, please refer to Johnston et al. (2023; https://doi.org/10.2737/WO-GTR-102-Chap7), and for the projection data on markets, please refer to Johnston et al. (2023; https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2022-0073-2). For more information about the data included in this package, see Prestemon and Guo (in press).