RPA forest products market data for U.S. RPA Regions and the world, historical (1990-2015), and projected (2020-2070) using the Forest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM): 2nd edition

The United States and the world underwent immense economic, social and economic change over the ten years since the last Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment, all of which have impacts on production and consumption of forest products. The data in this publication include recent trends (1990-2015) in global and U.S. forest products consumption, production, prices, and net trade. These data also include economic projections (2020-2070) of production, consumption, manufactured product prices, net trade, timber harvest levels, and timber prices, as influenced by four future scenarios regarding economic and population growth, and changing biomass energy demand through 2070. These RPA scenarios pair two alternative climate futures (Representative Concentration Pathways or RCPs) with four alternative futures (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways or SSPs) in the following combinations of U.S. socioeconomic growth: RCP 4.5 and SSP1 (lower warming-moderate, LM), RCP 8.5 and SSP3 (high warming-low, HL), RCP 8.5 and SSP2 (high warming-moderate, HM), and RCP 8.5 and SSP5 (high warming-high, HH).
The USDA Forest Service (USFS) 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. This RPA Assessment provides a snapshot of current U.S. forest and rangeland conditions and trends on all ownerships, identifies drivers of change, and projects 50 years into the future (https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/inventory/rpaa, Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment). For the 2020 RPA Assessment, a new market model named FOROM has been developed providing projections to 2070 for 20 wood products. 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 (Johnston et al. 2021).
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. Model solutions generated by FOROM for the 2020 RPA were generated jointly with the RPA Forest Dynamics Model. For more information on the model, please refer to Johnston et al. (2021). For more information about the RPA forest products market data, see Johnston et al. (2023). The first edition of these data (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2022-0073) was published on 11/04/2022. We recommend the use of this second edition, published on 07/10/2023, which includes the following updates: the standing stock projected by FOROM was re-calibrated to better align with the projection of the RPA Forest Dynamics Model. All other projections contained within the dataset remain unchanged. Minor metadata updates were made on 09/12/2023.