Direct Download (Raster Data Gateway)

Objective: Characterize recent impacts to terrestrial ecosystems due to outbreaks of major invasive, non-native, and native forest insects and pathogens.

Data: Data are derived from aerial detection surveys for tree defoliation and mortality from the USFS Forest Health Assessment and Applied Sciences Team (FHAAST) National Forest Pest Conditions Database. Polygons are created by aerial sketch mapping, and coded for defoliation and mortality, in addition to other damage codes. Defoliation and mortality layers were created from the polygon data and the attribute codes. The layers were merged to compensate for difficulties in identifying defoliation separately from mortality in hardwoods vs. conifer forests. Areas that were defoliated during three of the five years in each time period have significant impacts and likely are experiencing mortality, so these polygons were added to the mortality layer. The layer includes areas with mortality classed as “very light”. There is a one-year lag between the source data and the TCA Assessment year. For instance, the 2024 TCA Assessment used data from 2019-2023 aerial detection surveys to calculate the 0-5 year mortality metric, with all other assessment years following this same pattern.

Data Format: Raster data are binary: (1) presence or (0) absence.

Spatial Resolution: 240m.

Source data: USFS FHAAST custom product

Additional Resources:

Details on Method Changes and Source Data Versions

Overview of the Terrestrial Condition Assessment: TCA Hubsite or Landfire Office Hour Presentation

Explore the results of the most recent assessment: TCA Interactive Data Viewer

Learn more about the TCA KPI: TCA Dashboard