Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3280-7680

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Himes, Austin

Committee Member

Grado, Stephen C.

Committee Member

Grala, Robert K.

Committee Member

Kanieski da Silva, Bruno

Date of Degree

8-9-2022

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Forestry

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Forest Resources

Department

Department of Forestry

Abstract

Family forests comprise a significant portion of total forest lands in the southern United States and their owners frequently have multiple, competing objectives. This research evaluated the effectiveness of functional zoning based on site index on forest sizes relevant to family forest owners. A total of fifty family forests were randomly selected from counties in the East Texas Pineywoods region. Timber production and quail habitat were used as proxies for competing objectives. It was found that 80% of family forest parcels had sufficient site index heterogeneity to benefit from functional zoning. For forest parcels that could benefit from functional zoning, the benefit in terms of increased land expectation value was not found to be dependent on parcel size. At a 5% discount rate, the average benefit of land expectation value (LEV) was $15.61 per acre. This zoning approach provides multiple objectives while minimizing the economic impact of the non-revenue objectives.

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