United States Department of Agriculture

Outlook for Mid-South Forests:

a subregional report

from the Southern Forest Futures project

James M. Guldin, Stephen Hallgren, and James S. Crooks

Forest Service

Research & Development

Southern Research Station

General Technical Report SRS-206
The Authors:

James M. Guldin is a Supervisory Research 

Ecologist and Project Leader, Southern 

Research Station, U.S. Forest Service; 

Stephen Hallgren is an Associate Professor, 

Department of Natural Resource Ecology and 

Management, Oklahoma State University; 

and James S. Crooks is an Operations Team 

Leader, National Forests and Grasslands in 

Texas, U.S. Forest Service.

April 2015

Southern Research Station

200 W.T. Weaver Blvd.

Asheville, NC 28804

www.srs.fs.usda.gov

Cover photos 

main image: Shrubby lespedeza (Chris Evans, Illinois Wildlife Action 

Plan). top row left to right: Appalachian mixed hardwoods (Chris Evans, 

Illinois Wildlife Action Plan); Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 

Tennessee (Chris Evans, Illinois Wildlife Action Plan); Spanish moss and 

resurrection fern (Carey Minteer, University of Arkansas); aerial view of 

Little River, southwest Arkansas (Brian Lockhart, USDA Forest Service); 

and smooth sumac (Chris Evans, Illinois Wildlife Action Plan). All images 

from Bugwood.org.

Disclaimer

The use of trade or firm names in this publication is for reader information 

and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of 

any product or service.
Outlook for 

Mid-South Forests:

a subregional report

from the southern forest futures project

James M. Guldin, Stephen Hallgren, and James S. Crooks

Outlook for Mid-South Forests | prologue iii

Prologue

This report describes a set of likely forest futures and the 

management implications associated with each for the 

Mid-South, one of five subregions of the U.S. South. Its 

findings are based on the findings of the Southern Forest 

Futures Project, a multi-agency effort to anticipate the 

future and to analyze what the interaction of future changes 

might mean for forests and the benefits they provide in 

the 13 Southern States. The Futures Project investigators 

examined a labyrinth of driving factors, forest outcomes, 

and human implications to describe how the landscape of 

the South might change. Their findings, which are detailed 

in a 17 chapter technical report (Wear and Greis 2013) and 

synthesized in a compact summary report (Wear and Greis 

2012), consist of analyses of specific forecasts and natural 

resource issues. Because of the great variations across 

southern forest ecosystems, the Futures Project also draws 

out findings and management implications for each of five 

subregions (fig. P1) including the one addressed in this 

report.

Why spend several years sorting through the various facets 

of this complicated puzzle? The reasons are varied but they 

all revolve around one notion: knowing more about how the 

future might unfold can improve near-term decisions that 

have long-term consequences. For example, knowing more 

about future land use changes and timber markets can guide 

investment decisions. Knowing more about the intersection 

of anticipated urbanization, intensive forestry, and imperiled 

species can guide forest conservation policy and investments. 

And knowing more about the potential development of 

Mid-South

Coastal Plain

Piedmont

Coastal Plain

Appalachian-Cumberland

Mississippi 

AV

Figure P1—The five subregions of the U.S. South.

David N. Wear, Project Leader, 

Center for Integrated Forest Science and Synthesis, 

U.S. Forest Service, Southern Research Station, 

Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 

John G. Greis, Resource Analyst, 

State & Private Forestry,

U.S. Forest Service, Southern Region,

Tallahassee, FL 32399

The Southern Forest Futures Project Co-Leaders
iv A Subregional Report from the Southern Forest Futures Project

fiber markets can inform and improve bioenergy policies. 

Consequently, the intended users of the Futures Project 

findings are natural resource decisionmakers, professionals, 

and policy analysts as well as those members of society who 

care about natural resource sustainability.

From the dozens of detailed topic-specific findings in the 

technical report, 10 were identified and discussed in the 

Futures Project summary report. They are:

• The interactions among four primary factors will define 

the future forests of the South: population growth, climate 

change, timber markets, and invasive species.

• Urbanization is forecasted to cause losses in forest acreage, 

increased carbon emissions, and stress to forest resources.

• Southern forests could sustain higher timber production 

levels; however, demand is the limiting factor, and demand 

growth is uncertain.

• Increased use of wood-based bioenergy could generate 

demands that are large enough to trigger changes in forest 

conditions, management, and markets.

• A combination of factors, including population growth 

and climate change, has the potential to decrease water 

availability and degrade quality; forest conservation and 

management can help to mitigate these effects.

• Nonnative invasive species (insects, pathogens, and plants) 

present a large but uncertain potential for ecological 

changes and economic losses.

• Fire-related hazards in wildlands would be exacerbated 

by an extended fire season combined with obstacles to 

prescribed burning that would accompany increased 

urbanization (particularly in response to air quality and 

highway smoke issues).

• Private owners continue to control forest futures, but 

ownership patterns are becoming less stable.

• Threats to species of conservation concern are widespread 

but are especially concentrated in the Coastal Plain and the 

Appalachian-Cumberland highland.

• Increasing populations would increase demand for forestbased recreation while the availability of land to meet these 

needs is forecasted to decline. 

The impetus for the Southern Forest Futures Project comes 

from a desire to understand how a wide variety of dynamics 

including economic, demographic, and environmental 

changes might affect forest resources. An assessment of some 

aspects of forest sustainability (Wear and Greis 2002a, 2002b) 

was completed a decade ago, but the rapid pace of change and 

the sudden emergence of new and complex natural resource 

issues prompted a new study that could take advantage of 

recent science findings and forecasting methods. In December 

2007, the Futures Project got underway under the joint 

sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest 

Service and the Southern Group of State Foresters.

Designing the Futures Project

The Futures Project investigators started by identifying a 

set of relevant questions and then defining a targeted and 

robust process for answering them. Their process consisted 

of enumerating the critical socioeconomic and biophysical 

changes affecting forests, defining the most important 

management and policy information needs, and addressing 

forecasts and questions at the most useful scale of analysis. 

A series of public information gathering sessions addressed 

the first two stages of the process: more than 600 participants 

with a wide array of backgrounds and perspectives—at 

14 meetings, with at least one meeting in each of the 13 

Southern States—contributed input on what they saw as 

the important issues and future uncertainties affecting 

forests (Wear and others 2009). These meetings shaped the 

thinking about alternative futures and led to the selection 

and definition of meta-issues, each of which describes an 

interrelated complex of questions (for example, the bioenergy 

meta-issue is constructed from a set of questions that address 

conversion technologies, impacts on sustainability, Federal 

and State policies, and economic impacts). 

The South defines a discernible biological and 

socioeconomic region of the United States, but also contains 

a vast diversity of biota and socioeconomic settings within 

its boundaries. The meta-issues and the forecasts of future 

conditions were analyzed at the broad regional level, with 

results broken down to finer grains of analysis where feasible 

and appropriate. However, the broad-scale approach was not 

considered adequate to address specific implications that 

these forecasts and issue analyses hold for forest management 

and restoration activities in more localized conditions; doing 

so required a scale that more closely matched the different 

forest ecosystem types in the South (fig. P2).

DĂŶĂŐĞŵĞŶƚĂŶĚƌĞƐƚŽƌĂƚŝŽŶŝŵƉůŝĐĂƚŝŽŶƐ

^ƵďƌĞŐŝŽŶĂůŶĂůLJƐŝƐ

/ŵƉůŝĐĂƚŝŽŶƐĨŽƌǀĂƌŝŽƵƐĞĐŽƐLJƐƚĞŵƐĞƌǀŝĐĞƐ

DĞƚĂͲ/ƐƐƵĞŶĂůLJƐŝƐ

&ŽƌĞĐĂƐƚŽĨƌĞƐŽƵƌĐĞĐŽŶĚŝƚŝŽŶƐĂŶĚƵƐĞƐ

&ŽƌĞĐĂƐƚŝŶŐŶĂůLJƐŝƐ

Figure P2—The three phases of the Southern Forest Futures Project.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | prologue v

Thus the second phase of the Futures Project, in which 

separate efforts examined the management/restoration 

implications for the five subregions of the South: Coastal Plain, 

Piedmont, Appalachian-Cumberland highlands, Mississippi 

Alluvial Valley, and Mid-South (which includes all of Texas 

and Oklahoma). Still further spatial resolution was provided by 

breaking the subregions into a number of ecological sections; 

some issues are discussed at that scale as well.

The analytical centerpiece of the Futures Project is a set of 

forecasting models contained in the U.S. Forest Assessment 

System, which was developed for the U.S. Forest Service 

2010 Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment as a 

means of conducting national forecasts. The system uses 

global projections of climate, technological, population, and 

economic variables to drive the simulation of changes in 

land uses, forest uses, and forest conditions at a fine spatial 

scale—thus facilitating subregional and other fine scale 

analyses. Specific RPA scenarios were chosen that define the 

set of variables that “drive” the forecasts, linking national 

economic and climate changes to the worldviews contained 

in international climate assessments (Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change 2007). 

Although the Futures Project tiered directly to the 2010 RPA 

Assessment (USDA Forest Service 2012), its investigators 

developed more specific implications for the South within the 

bounds of the scientific literature. 

Perhaps the only absolute truth about any forecast is that 

it will be an inaccurate description of future reality to 

one degree or another and that the best—that is, the most 

accurate—forecast is not likely to be known ahead of time. 

As a result, forecasters hedge their expectations of future 

conditions by including a range of plausible futures and thus 

addressing the risk of generating precise forecasts of the 

wrong future. 

The Futures Project investigators considered a large number 

of scenarios based on the 2010 RPA Assessment and public 

input, and then narrowed them to a half dozen that captured 

the broad range of potential conditions. These “Cornerstone 

Futures” define six combinations of climate, economic, 

population, and forest-products sector projections (fig. P3).

The assumption was that unfolding events would be captured 

by a future that is close to one of the Cornerstone Futures. 

The validity of this assumption, however, will only be 

revealed by the course of future events. 

Forecasts provide practical insights only when they are 

examined in the light of specific issues and historical 

changes. The meta-issues provided specific questions to 

be addressed using the forecasts along with other available 

information. For some meta-issues, such as water or fire, 

additional models helped translate forest forecasts into 

specific implications. For other meta-issues, such as taxes or 

ownership, a more qualitative approach linked the analysis of 

meta-issues to forecasts. But for each meta-issue, the analysis 

started with a thorough synthesis of historical trends, a 

description of the current situation, and a summary of the 

relevant scientific literature.

This report draws together the findings from the 17 chapters 

of the Southern Forest Futures Project technical report 

(Wear and Greis 2013) to isolate the findings of most critical 

consequences for management and policy decisionmaking 

within the Mid-South. The findings described here also offer 

an interpretation of the most important findings from the 

technical report and their implications for forest management 

and restoration activities within the Mid-South.

Cornerstone E

(based on A, with 

high planting rates)

Cornerstone F

(based on D, with 

low planting rates)

High population 

and income growth

Low population 

and income growth

Cornerstone A

(MIROC GCM)

Cornerstone B

(CSIRO GCM)

Cornerstone C

(CSIRO GCM)

Cornerstone D

(Hadley GCM)

High Timber Prices

Low Timber Prices

Figure P3—Six Cornerstone Futures, each of which represents a general 

circulation model (MIROC3.2, CSIROMK3.5, CSIROMK2, or HadCM3) 

paired with one of two emission scenarios (A1B representing highpopulation/high-economic growth, high energy use, and B2 representing 

low growth and use) and two timber price futures; and then extended by 

evaluating forest planting rates above and below current levels (Sources: 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007, USDA Forest Service 

2012).
vi A Subregional Report from the Southern Forest Futures Project

The Cornerstone Futures

Southern Forest Futures Project investigators developed six Cornerstone Futures (A to F) to describe the factors 

that are likely to drive changes in southern forests. The Cornerstone Futures were selected to represent the range of 

findings from a much broader set of possibilities that were developed by combining county-level population/income 

and climate projections, assumptions about future timber scarcity, and assumptions about tree planting rates (Wear 

and Greis 2012, 2013).

County-level forecasts of population and income, variables critical to the Cornerstone Futures, were projected within 

the context of two global perspectives on socioeconomic change—downscaled descriptions of demographic change 

and economic growth (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007)—to construct global forecasts of climate 

changes and their implications. The first yielded about a 40-percent growth in overall population from 2010 to 2060, 

and the second yielded a higher rate of 60 percent. The projections vary by county, with the populations of some 

counties growing substantially and others shrinking.

Timber price futures either describe increasing or decreasing scarcity with an orderly progression of real prices: 

assumed to be 1 percent per year from a base in 2005 through 2060. Real returns to agricultural land uses were also 

held constant throughout the forecasts for all Cornerstone Futures. 

Each of the population/income projections embedded in the Cornerstone Futures is linked to a worldwide emissions 

storyline that drives alternative climate forecasts. The result was three climate projections driven by the population/

economic projections and downscaled to the county level. Forecasted variables included changes in temperature, 

precipitation, and derived potential evapotranspiration. One climate forecast was selected for each of the Cornerstone 

Futures in a way that incorporated the full range of climate projections. These are taken from four downscaled climate 

models—MIROC3.2, CSIROMK2, CSIROMK3.5, and HadCM3.

Cornerstones A through D are defined by the matrix formed by intersecting low and high population and income 

forecasts with increasing and decreasing timber price futures as described above: 

Cornerstone A—High population/income growth with increasing timber prices and baseline tree planting rates.

Cornerstone B—High population/income growth with decreasing timber prices and baseline tree planting rates.

Cornerstone C—Low population/income growth with increasing timber prices and baseline tree planting rates.

Cornerstone D—Low population/income growth with decreasing timber prices and baseline tree planting rates.

These four Cornerstones assume rates of post-harvesting tree planting that are based on future planting forecasts 

derived from planting frequencies between the latest two forest survey periods for all States and all major forest types 

(data from Forest Inventory and Analysis, Southern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service). Because this was a period 

of rapid expansion in planted pine, perhaps associated with displacement of harvesting from the Western United 

States, baseline rates were set at 50 percent of the observed frequencies. 

Cornerstones E and F depart from the first four, with Cornerstone E increasing planting rates by 50 percent for 

Cornerstone A (strong economic growth and expanding timber markets); and Cornerstone F decreasing planting rates 

by 50 percent for Cornerstone D (reduced economic growth and decreasing timber markets). 

Forecasts for the Cornerstone Futures provide the foundation for understanding the potential implications of the metaissues identified by the Futures Project.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | prologue vii

Literature Cited

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. IPCC fourth 

assessment report: climate change 2007 (AR4). http://www.ipcc.ch/

publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm. [Date 

accessed: March 3, 2013].

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service. 2012. Future 

of America’s forest and rangelands: Forest Service 2010 Resources 

Planning Act Assessment. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-87. Washington, 

DC. 198 p.

Wear, D.N.; Greis, J.G., eds. 2002a. The Southern Forest Resource 

Assessment: technical report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-53. Asheville, NC: 

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research 

Station. 635 p.

Wear, D.N.; Greis, J.G. 2002b. The Southern Forest Resource Assessment: 

summary report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-54. Asheville, NC: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research 

Station. 103 p.

Wear, D.N.; Greis, J.G.; Walters, N. 2009. The Southern Forest Futures 

Project: using public input to define the issues. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-115. 

Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern 

Research Station. 17 p.

Wear, D.N.; Greis, J.G., eds. 2012. The Southern Forest Futures Project: 

summary report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-168. Asheville, NC: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research 

Station. 54 p. 

Wear, D.N.; Gries, J.G., eds. 2013. The Southern Forest Futures Project: 

technical report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-178. Asheville, NC: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research 

Station. 542 p.
viii A Subregional Report from the Southern Forest Futures Project

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x

Chapter 1. The Forests and People of the Mid-South . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Cross Timbers Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

High Plains Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

West Texas Basin and Range Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 2. The Changing Physical Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Wildfire and Prescribed Burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 3. The Human Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Population, Demography, and Economic Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Land Use Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Forest Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chapter 4. Biological Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Invasive Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Insect and Disease Pests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Chapter 5. Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values . . . . . . . . 47

Forest Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Wildlife and Forest Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Water Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Economic Wellbeing and Quality of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 6. Management Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Drought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Forest and Woodland Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Recreation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Forest Biobased Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Wildlife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Invasive Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

CONTENTS
ix

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the leadership of David Wear and John Greis in the 

development and implementation of the Southern Forest Futures Project, technical editor 

Carol Whitlock for an excellent review, and also for hundreds of conversations with 

resource managers and members of the public in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas that 

inspired this Mid-South report. We thank several anonymous reviewers for constructive 

comments and advice. Thanks also to Dr. Ronald F. Billings with the Texas A&M Forest 

Service, for providing excellent photos of Texas landscapes.

Abstract

This report presents forecasts from the Southern Forest Futures Project that are specific 

to the Mid-South, which consists of four sections located within Arkansas, Oklahoma, 

and Texas: the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, the Cross Timbers, the High Plains, and the 

West Texas Basin and Range. Ranging from Little Rock, AR to El Paso, TX, it is the most 

diverse subregion in the South. The Mid-South faces a number of important challenges 

to management of forests and woodlands over the next 50 years, including population 

increases, the likelihood for increased drought, increased demand for water and water 

supply stress, sea level rise along the Gulf of Mexico, and invasive native species. 

Understanding these challenges, and the implications they could have on management 

and policy in the region, is critical to maintaining the diversity, health, productivity, and 

sustainability of Mid-South forests, woodlands, and grasslands.

Keywords: Climate change, Cross Timbers, drought, forest management, High Plains, 

Mid-South, Ouachita, Ozark, Southern Forest Futures Project, water, West Texas Basin 

and Range, woodlands.

Outlook for Mid-South Forests | acknowledgments & abstract
x A Subregional Report from the Southern Forest Futures Project

Key Findings

l The Mid-South is one of five subregions in the Southern United States, along with 

the Coastal Plain, Mississippi Alluvial Valley, Piedmont, and Appalachian-Cumberland 

Highlands. It encompasses the Ozark and Ouachita Highlands in Arkansas and Oklahoma, 

the Cross Timbers and the High Plains in Oklahoma and Texas, and the West Texas Basin 

and Range sections. Stretching from Little Rock to El Paso, it is the westernmost, largest, 

and most diverse subregion in the South, characterized by a combination of geographic 

range and a unique confluence of rural and highly urban landscapes. 

l The projections in the Southern Forest Futures Report (Wear and Greis 2013) were 

developed using the 2000 U.S. Census. However, rates of population increase in the 

Mid-South reported by the 2010 U.S. Census were higher than the baseline rates that were 

used to forecast population through 2060. For example, population growth in some urban 

counties in northeastern and central Texas was >50 percent from 2000 to 2010. As a result, 

the findings that depend on population growth, including models of climate, economic 

activity, land use, and associated stresses on natural resources such as water and forest 

products, are probably conservative. 

l Increases in demand for water in the Mid-South will likely grow as a result of 

expanding populations, increasing evapotranspiration that is expected under warmer 

temperatures, and decreases in precipitation; these synergistic effects will likely increase 

water supply stress over the balance of the 21st century. 

l Models predict rising sea levels and coastal inundation along the Gulf of Mexico over 

the next century; the result could be a loss of ecologically and economically valuable 

coastal property.

l In the Mid-South, wet and dry periods will continue to be cyclic in association with 

Pacific Decadal Oscillations, but the cycles will likely become more extreme; some areas 

will likely experience decreases in precipitation and other areas will experience increases, 

but models suggest that temperatures will continue to increase overall.

l Changes will be needed in management recommendations for Mid-South forests and 

woodlands to address expected increases in drought; for example, standard practices may 

require modification to minimize the loss of investments in tree planting and other costly 

practices during periods of drought.

l As parcelization of forest and woodland ownership across the landscape increases, 

resource management practices will need to adapt to increasingly smaller tract sizes, 

especially in the wildland-urban interface.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests xi | key findings

l In the forest products industry, the trend is toward increasing mechanization and a 

homogenization of industrial capability in the woods and at the mills, which does not 

bode well for development of resource management opportunities from heretoforeunmerchantable standing trees in forests of heterogeneous structure, or for management 

activities on increasingly smaller tract sizes. 

l Because land-based and water-based activities would likely increase more or less 

constantly with population, expected increases in population densities—especially around 

the major cities of Texas and to a lesser extent Oklahoma and Arkansas—would mean an 

increase in demand for outdoor recreation, resulting in competition for opportunities on a 

static land base of Federal and State lands; expected changes in the pattern of rural versus 

urban life would also influence recreation activities from consumptive to nonconsumptive 

uses.

l In the Mid-South, which has abundantly diverse landscapes for wildlife and more 

species than anywhere else in the South, the combination of increasingly warmer 

temperatures, increasingly dry conditions, and less water on the landscape would cause 

changes in existing population numbers and the geographic distribution of plant and 

animal species; species with a limited geographic range, low genetic diversity, and 

specialized needs for reproduction and habitat requirements are at higher risk of population 

decline and even extirpation at local levels.

l Native invasive plant species such as mesquite, juniper, and eastern redcedar are more 

of a challenge in the Mid-South than nonnative invasives; control or removal of these 

plants will largely depend on the desire of landowners to engage in control and their ability 

to afford effective treatments.

l Unlike nonnative plants, invasive insects and diseases are a large-scale threat to MidSouth ecosystems: all ash species are at risk from a devastating infestation of the emerald 

ash borer, soapberry populations are likely to be lost from infestation by the soapberry 

borer, red-bay populations are highly susceptible to laurel wilt, and oaks face decline, 

wilt, defoliators, and canker disease; almost certainly, by the end of the 21st century, other 

introduced insect and disease pests will threaten other important tree species.

l Increasing temperature, drought, and human population would increase the threat from 

wildfires, which are expected to occur more frequently and are likely to cover larger areas.

l Many native species that depend on open understory conditions in forests and 

woodlands would benefit if prescribed burning was extended into Mid-South landscapes; 

however, the climate changes that are forecasted would reduce the number of days that are 

suitable for prescribed burning, and the difficulty of prescribed burning would increase 

because of new smoke management concerns that would arise from the expansion of cities, 

suburbs, and wildland-urban interface areas. 

Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 1

The Mid-South is the westernmost of the five subregions 

that make up the Southern United States—along with 

the Coastal Plain, Mississippi Alluvial Valley, Piedmont, 

and Appalachian-Cumberland Highlands. It is located to 

the north and west of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and 

western Coastal Plain in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. 

For this report, the Mid-South was subdivided into four 

broad ecologically derived sections—the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands, the Cross Timbers, the High Plains, and the 

West Texas Basin and Range (fig. 1), after Rudis (1999). 

Long-term survey data exist for the forests of the OzarkOuachita Highlands and to some extent the Cross Timbers, 

but the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program of the Forest 

Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture has only recently 

extended into the western portion of the Cross Timbers, the 

High Plains, and the West Texas Basin and Range sections. 

Thus, some of the analysis that is reported here reflects a less 

robust database than was used in preparing the other four 

subregional reports for the Southern Forest Futures Project 

(Wear and Greis 2013).

Chapter 1.

The Forests and People

of the Mid-South

WASHINGTON

NOWATA OTTAWA

DELAWARE

MARION

BAXTER RANDOLPH

SHARP WASHINGTON

INDEPENDENCE

STONE

CLEBURNE

CONWAY

FAULKNER

MONTGOMERY

CRAWFORD

FRANKLIN

SEBASTIAN

CHEROKEE

HASKELL

ROGERS

TULSA

WAGONER

PAWNEE

MUSKOGEE

OKMULGEE

OKFUSKEE

MCINTOSH POTTAWATOMIE

CLEVELAND

MCCLAIN SEMINOLE

PONTOTOC

DELTA

FRANKLIN

RAINS

KAUFMAN

ROCKWALL

FREESTONE

LIMESTONE

ROBERTSON

KINGFISHER

OKLAHOMA

JEFFERSON JOHNSTON

BRYAN

MARSHALL

MONTAGUE

BOS UE

SOMERVELL

COMANCHE

LAMPASAS

BRAZOS

BURLESON GRIMES

WASHINGTON

WALLER

ADAIR

CALDWELL

GUADALUPE

JACKSON

VICTORIA

ARANSAS

JIM

WELLS

MCMULLEN

BLANCO

MCCULLOCH

STERLING

GLASSCOCK

CALLAHAN

BROWN

SHACKELFORD

STEPHENS

YOAKUM

STONEWALL THROCKMORTON

COCHRAN

HARDEMAN

WILBARGER

CHILDRESS

HARMON

ARMSTRONG COLLINGSWORTH

HUTCHINSON

HANSFORD

OCHILTREE

LIPSCOMB WOODWARD

HUGHES

TITUS

MADISON

PECOS

WEBB

BREWSTER

HUDSPETH

PRESIDIO

REEVES

OSAGE

TEXAS

CULBERSON

VAL VERDE

DUVAL

TERRELL

CROCKETT

KAY

KENEDY

FRIO

HILL

BEAVER

ELLIS

BELL

BEE

CLAY

EDWARDS

JEFF DAVIS

KERR

GAINES

UVALDE

LEON

YELL

HALE

IRION

DALLAM

DIMMIT

LAMB

KING

STARR

BEXAR KINNEY

HALL

WISE JACK

CADDO

UPTON

SUTTON

AVALA

HIDALGO

OLDHAM

ELLIS

LYNN

MEDINA

KIMBLE

KENT

CIMARRON

GRAY

LEE

LE FLORE

WOODS

ERATH

LA

SALLE

COKE

POLK

MILAM

MCCURTAIN

HARTLEY

HUNT

KIOWA

BRAZORIA

GRADY

KNOX

ATOKA

POPE

FLOYD

LLANO

ANDREWS

TRAVIS

APATA

GRANT

CREEK

JONES

NUECES

REAGAN

WARD

DEWEY

MAJOR

LAMAR

REAL

NOLAN

SCOTT

TERRY

BLAINE

GARZA

MILLS

COLEMAN

ECTOR

FALLS

HAYS

MATAGORDA

LAVACA

MASON

YOUNG

MAVERICK

HARPER

CAMERON

COOKE

BURNET

DEAF SMITH

FISHER

COLLIN

FANNIN

CUSTER

EL PASO

CRAIG

PITTSBURG

MOORE

MOTLEY

MARTIN

TAYLOR

DALLAS

LIVE OAK

BAILEY

ATASCOSA

KLEBERG

JIM

HOGG

COTTLE

DENTON

SAN

SABA

GOLIAD

POTTER

CORYELL

WASHITA

DONLEY

NAVARRO

BAYLOR

PARKER

CRANE

CONCHO

LINCOLN

DE WITT

RUNNELS

BROOKS

FAYETTE

ARCHER

NOBLE

CARSON

WOOD

SCURRY

CASTRO

PAYNE

LOGAN

CROSBY

WHARTON

GARVIN

GARFIELD

BORDEN

BENTON

CALHOUN

PARMER

PUSHMATAHA

LOGAN

MENARD

TILLMAN

GILLESPIE

WILSON

CARTER

DICKENS

SCHLEICHER

FOARD

HASKELL

DAWSON

MIDLAND

BRISCOE

HOWARD

RANDALL

MAYES

LOVE

GRAYSON

GONZALES

I ARD

RED

RIVER

TARRANT

SWISHER

ROBERTS

COAL PULASKI

HOCKLEY

MCLENNAN

LUBBOCK

BASTROP

NEWTON

COMANCHE

MITCHELL

WHEELER

SHERMAN

WINKLER

KARNES

BECKHAM

HEMPHILL

GREER

WILLIAMSON

REFUGIO

MADISON

LOVING

AUSTIN

WILLACY

EASTLAND

HOPKINS

CANADIAN

LATIMER JACKSON

BOONE

STEPHENS

BANDERA

HAMILTON

PERRY

SEARCY

COMAL

FULTON

CHOCTAW

FORT

BEND

COTTON

WICHITA

GARLAND

JOHNSON

HENDERSON

HOOD

KENDALL

CARROLL

SEQUOYAH

TOM

GREEN

ALFALFA

SALINE

COLORADO

ROGER

MILLS

PALO

PINTO

VAN

JOHNSON VAN BUREN

SAN

PATRICIO

MURRAY

Mississippi

Alluvial Valley

Coastal Plain

Coastal Plain

West Texas

Basin Range

Cross Timbers

Ozark-Ouachita

Highlands

High Plains

County boundary

Section boundary

Q

ZANDT

Z

Z

Figure 1—The four sections of the U.S. Mid-South and the counties included in each section.
2 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Section

The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section covers much of 

the northwestern third of Arkansas and more than a dozen 

counties in eastern Oklahoma. It is the smallest of the four 

sections, covering 24.386 million acres or 11.4 percent of 

the Mid-South (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). According to 

the nomenclature of Bailey and others (1994) and Keys and 

others (1995), the section includes the southern part of the 

Ozark Highlands, the Boston Mountains, the Arkansas River 

Valley, and the Ouachita Mountains. This is the most heavily 

forested section in the Mid-South, supporting fully stocked 

forests of oak and pine. The Ozark Plateau extends well into 

Missouri, but for purposes of this report the area of analysis 

is bordered to the north by the Arkansas-Missouri State 

line. The section is bordered to the east by the Mississippi 

Alluvial Valley and to the south by the upper west Gulf 

Coastal Plain. It has no large metropolitan areas, only smaller 

cities that include Batesville, AR to the northeast; Little Rock 

and Hot Springs, AR to the southeast; Fayetteville, AR and 

Tahlequah, OK to the northwest; and McAlester and Idabel, 

OK to the southwest.

Landforms and Soils

Through most of the Paleozoic Era up to about 320 million 

years ago, the area of the current Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

was under ocean water, during which time organic and 

inorganic materials were deposited through marine 

sedimentary processes. But from 286- to 320-million years 

ago during the Pennsylvanian Epoch, a major tectonic 

event called the Ouachita Orogen caused what is now North 

America to collide with a southern landmass, laterally 

compressing the marine sediments from south to north in 

ways that resulted in considerable folding, faulting, and 

subduction from western Texas to central Alabama (Loomis 

and others 1994, Viele and Thomas 1989). The event exposed 

what we now call the Ouachita Mountains in a folded and 

faulted pattern of ridges that are oriented from east to west, 

and concurrently uplifted and exposed the three major layers 

of the Ozark Plateau. Over the 280 million years since, the 

major geological process in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

has been erosion. The sandstones, shales, and dolomitic 

limestones that were exposed in the Pennsylvanian Epoch 

have essentially been reduced through weathering and 

erosion to their current condition.

South of the Arkansas River, the Ouachita Mountains still 

bear the imprint of their folded and faulted history, with 

long ridges oriented from east to west. The terrain reaches 

maximum elevation of about 2,600 feet, or 1,500 feet 

above the adjoining valleys. The side slopes of ridges are 

often steep and rugged in the upper slopes, but gradually 

flatten in the lower slopes. As a result, hillsides grade into 

broad U-shaped valleys whose breath and gentle gradient 

is attributed to millennia of surface-water meanderings, 

especially along the larger creeks and rivers that flow among 

the ridges. Cuts in the Ouachita stratigraphy expose a history 

Eastern Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas—Forked Mountain in Perry County. (photo by James M. Guldin, U.S. Forest Service) 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 3

of rock strata that have been twisted, buckled, folded, and 

oriented in every position from horizontal to vertical.

Ouachita soils are highly weathered Ultisols (Buckman and 

Brady 1969). Soil formation is affected by the extremely 

rocky terrain, the resistance of the rocks to erosion, and 

the high degree of soil stoniness across the section. For 

example, Liechty and others (2005) reported that soils in the 

western Ouachitas are typic Hapludults with loamy surface 

textures and unusually high rock content in the surface and 

subsurface. Site productivity closely follows slope position, 

with poor sites (low moisture and productivity) on ridgetops 

and upper slopes, and with the topography grading to better 

sites on lower slopes and floodplains. This common pattern 

occurs because of colluvial activity that has carried soils 

from ridgetops to floodplains over the years, resulting in 

thin soils on upper slopes and deeper soils on lower slopes. 

Also, because south-facing slopes receive considerably more 

sunlight than northern slopes, the south-facing ridgetops are 

drier and less productive, whereas the lower north-facing 

slopes are more mesic and can be highly productive.

North of the Arkansas River are the three plateaus of the 

Ozark Mountains—the Salem Plateau, the Springfield 

Plateau, and the Boston Mountains. Of these, the highest 

and southernmost is the Boston Mountains, rising just to the 

north of Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Fort Smith, and 

consisting of Pennsylvanian sandstones and shales with rugged 

mountaintops reaching elevations of 1,700 to 2,300 feet. To the 

north is the Springfield Plateau, consisting of Mississippian 

limestones and cherts in a less rugged terrain, with hilltops 

reaching 1,000 to 1,700 feet. Even farther north is the Salem 

Plateau, of Ordovician dolomite and limestone, varyingly 

gentle and rugged, with hilltops roughly 900 to 1,400 feet in 

elevation. Throughout these plateaus, exposed stratigraphy is 

prominently horizontal, in stark contrast to the Ouachitas.

Because the entire set of plateaus is underlain with carbonate 

rock, karst features such as exposed glades, sinkholes, caves, 

and caverns are prominent. More than 250 million years of 

erosion in these dolomitic hills has resulted in an unusually 

dissected topography that has a branching pattern, with small 

creeks running through deep ravines, and hillsides facing 

nearly all points on the compass. This same interaction of 

erosion and geology over time has produced some of the 

most beautiful rivers and creeks in the South, with crystalclear water flowing through steep vertical bluffs hundreds of 

feet high.

Variation in the erodibility of substrates leads to variation 

in topographic and soil conditions on Ozark hillsides, where 

deposition of soil from above onto resistant parent material 

on horizontal benches can lead to very moist conditions, and 

to the counterintuitive observation that some of the best sites 

for forest growth in the area can be halfway up the hillside. 

Ozark soils are primarily Ultisols, with everything from new 

sandy deposits near creeks to well developed silt loams on 

benches to thin stony soils on the ridgetops.

Upper Boston Mountain area of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas; view of the Big Bluff on the Buffalo River in Newton County. 

(photo by James M. Guldin, U.S. Forest Service)
4 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

Major Forest Types and Vegetative Communities

The native forest types in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

vary from stands heavily dominated by shortleaf pine (Pinus 

echinata) to oak (Quercus spp.) and pine mixtures to oak and 

hickory (Carya spp.) stands that are hardwood-dominated 

with only a minor pine component, if any. Closed canopy 

forests are typical, but open woodlands were probably more 

common 200 years ago, when midstories and understories 

were not subject to the fire controls that have been in place 

over the past 80 years. In addition, under forest products 

industry ownership especially in the Ouachitas, large 

areas of native shortleaf pine-dominated stands have been 

converted to plantations of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), which 

is not native to the Ouachita-Ozark Highlands except at the 

southeastern extremity, more or less south of an imaginary 

line that crosses Arkansas from DeQueen to Glenwood to 

Hot Springs to Little Rock.

With respect to species composition, oak-hickory stands 

are at the opposite end of the silvicultural spectrum from 

pine-dominated stands in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. 

In the highest elevations, stands dominated by post oak 

(Q. stellata), blackjack oak (Q. marilandica), some white oak 

(Q. alba), some black oak (Q. velutina), and black hickory 

(C. texana) occupy the ridgetops and upper slopes. Stands 

that feature white oak, southern red oak (Q. falcata), black 

oak, red maple (Acer rubrum), and sweetgum (Liquidambar 

styraciflua) occur in moderately moist conditions on flat or 

gentle terrain along ephemeral and perennial streams or low 

north- and south-facing slopes, which in many respects are 

the most productive sites anywhere in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands. White oak can become dominant especially on 

lower slopes where conditions are moderately moist. Red oaks 

(including southern red oak, black oak, and blackjack oak) 

also occur, although slightly less commonly than the white 

oaks. Other common species on lower slopes include winged 

elm (Ulmus alata), sweetgum, red maple, and flowering 

dogwood (Cornus florida).

The five most widely distributed forest types, which cover 

>70 percent of the forest land in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands, are white oak/red oak/hickory at 26.9 percent, 

post oak/blackjack oak at 17.2 percent, shortleaf pine at 

11.1 percent, loblolly pine (virtually all in plantations) at 

8.5 percent, and shortleaf pine/oak at 7.4 percent.

History

Human use of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands dates back well 

into the early Holocene Epoch, when vegetation consisted of 

species that had retreated from the Wisconsinian glaciation 

and since have re-occupied the Northern United States. 

Artifacts of human habitation trace back to 5,000 years ago. 

Early human residents probably made use of the many bluffs 

in the Ozarks for protection against weather, but evidence 

from mounds and middens suggests that humans expanded 

into shelters and communal groups in the late Archaic Period 

from 1,000 to 5,000 years ago (Sabo and others 1990); some 

of these groupings may have permanently settled on terraces 

of rivers to enable agricultural activity.

The first Europeans entered the southern Ozarks and 

northern Ouachitas in the late 1600s via the Arkansas 

A Ouachita landscape in Arkansas, looking westward from Flatside Pinnacle (Ouachita National Forest) in Perry County; stands are dominated by shortleaf 

pine on south-facing slopes and by oak-hickory hardwood stands on north-facing slopes. (photo by James M. Guldin, U.S. Forest Service) 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 5

River Valley, where they encountered two linguistically 

related Native American societies—the Osage toward 

the northwest and the Quapaw toward the southeast. 

Following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, these societies 

were displaced by European fur traders and settlers and 

by the migration of the Cherokee Nation to lands along 

the Arkansas River. After an 1817 treaty established the 

Cherokee Nation along the Arkansas and White Rivers, 

hostilities continued among the Cherokee, the remnants of 

the Osage, and the settlers. The hostilities resulted in the 

final relocation of the Cherokee to territories in Oklahoma 

in 1828, despite the treaty commitments made in 1817. With 

that move, the continued presence of Native American 

society in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands effectively ended 

(Sabo and others 1990).

Settlement of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands in the 18th

century consisted of sporadic explorations and isolated 

outposts occupied by French traders. Other settlements 

began shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, with several 

expeditions in 1818 to the northern Ozarks (Schoolcraft 

1996) and up through the Arkansas River Valley (Nuttall 

1980) to chart and describe the area. The establishment of 

the Arkansas Territory in 1819 triggered a larger migration. 

Little Rock was established on the Arkansas River in the 

early 1800s, and a military post was set up at Fort Smith in 

1817. From 1820 to 1840, settlements sprung up along the 

many tributaries of the Arkansas and White Rivers. The 

pattern of settlement was initially hunter-herders followed 

by pioneer farmers (Sabo and others 1990). The rugged 

topography made this a difficult proposition, and life 

remained at subsistence level well into the 1800s.

In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the Union but did not 

play much of a direct role in the Civil War, with no major 

battles fought. After the Union occupied the State in 1863, 

widespread lawlessness reigned for the remainder of the war, 

resulting in a general loss of population (Rafferty 1980). 

But people returned after the war and a period of developed 

settlement began, aided by improved roads, expansion of 

railroads, river traffic, and other advances in transportation. 

Agricultural activity centered on fruit growing, cotton 

farming, poultry production, and dairy farming. This period 

of stability essentially ended the practice of annual burning 

of forests with concomitant shifts in vegetation of forest 

understories.

Manufacturing also began in earnest in the 1880s (Sabo 

and others 1990), and one of the most important raw 

materials was lumber from the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

(Smith 1988). The high rate of lumbering was, of course, 

unsustainable in the long term; by the 1920s, virgin 

timberlands were gone and the practice of scientific forest 

management had begun.

Despite difficult terrain and topography, the milestones in 

education and standard of living established during the 

20th century govern commercial activity to this day. Schools 

grew with the town populations, and the University of 

Arkansas (the State land grant university in Fayetteville) 

gained in influence. The major development that introduced 

modern life throughout the section was the establishment 

of rural electrification immediately after World War II. 

Before 1930, only 2 percent of Arkansas farms were 

electrified; 10 years later, 112,050 of the 1.95 million people 

Lower Boston Mountains in Arkansas; view south from Pedestal Rocks on the Ozark National Forest in Pope County. (photo by James M. Guldin, 

U.S. Forest Service) 
6 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

in Arkansas had electricity. From 1937 to 1945, a power grid 

was established across the State, and by 1963, 67 percent 

of Arkansas farms were electrified. The 2010 U.S. Census 

counted more than a million households in the Ozark and 

Ouachita Highlands, and electrical service has become 

universally available for all but the most remote homes.

Cross Timbers Section

The Cross Timbers is usually defined as the transition zone 

between the eastern deciduous forest and the southern Great 

Plains: a long narrow area extending from southern Kansas 

through eastern Oklahoma and east-central Texas that almost 

reaches the Gulf of Mexico. However, for the purposes of 

this report, its northern boundary is the Oklahoma-Kansas 

State line, and its southern boundary is the Gulf of Mexico. 

To the east, the section is bounded by the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands and the western Coastal Plain; to the west, by the 

High Plains section. It is the second largest section, covering 

58.437 million acres or just over a quarter of the land area 

in the Mid-South (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). According to 

the nomenclature of Bailey and others (1994) and Keys and 

others (1995), the section includes the Cross Timbers and 

Prairies, Blackland Prairies, Oak Woods and Prairies, and 

the Central Gulf and Southern Gulf Prairies and Marshes. 

It has the most well developed urban areas in the MidSouth threading from Houston (in the Coastal Plain) to San 

Antonio (in the High Plains); Oklahoma population centers 

of Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Stillwater in the north; and 

Texas population centers of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco in 

the center and Corpus Christi along the Gulf of Mexico.

Landforms and Soils

The Cross Timbers section is mostly within the southwestern 

portion of the Central Lowlands physiographic province 

and its boundary is similar to the local boundary of the 

physiographic province. Its boundaries with the High 

Plains to the west and south and with the Coastal Plain to 

the southeast are not distinct. By comparison, its eastern 

boundary with the Ouachita and Ozark Highlands is well 

defined and abrupt.

The Cross Timbers is characterized by the two distinguishing 

features that typify the Central Lowlands—low elevation 

and low relief. Elevation ranges from a low of about 500 feet 

along the Red River to highs of 1,400 feet in the Arbuckle 

Mountains and 2,500 feet in the Wichita Mountains. The 

section owes it low relief, which rarely exceeds 600 feet, to 

the fact that it is in an area that has remained relatively stable 

for 600 million years and has fewer deformations of the 

earth’s crust than the rest of North America.

The geologic formations underlying the Cross Timbers are 

almost entirely sedimentary in origin. In Oklahoma and the 

western Cross Timbers of Texas, the predominant formation 

Typical Cross Timbers vegetation in Texas; landscape is the Cross Timbers Research Natural Areas (RNA) in the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grasslands in 

east Texas. (photo by Don C. Bragg, U.S. Forest Service) 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 7

is Pennsylvanian marine shale interbedded with sandstone 

and limestone, with a smaller portion in Permian red 

sandstone and shale. Most of the area farther east is underlain 

by Cretaceous rocks of interbedded sandstone, limestone, 

marl, and clay. A very small portion is underlain by igneous 

rocks of Cambrian origin; these include granite, rhyolite, 

and gabbro in the Wichita Mountains and rhyolite in most 

of the Arbuckle Mountains. And an even smaller amount 

of metamorphic rocks in the form of Precambrian gneiss 

underlie the eastern Arbuckle Mountains.

The Cross Timbers has no natural lakes because the 

geomorphic processes (such as glaciation) that would create 

lakes have never occurred. Instead, tens of thousands of 

farm ponds created in recent times for agricultural use 

and recreation dot the landscape. The Oklahoma Cross 

Timbers are entirely within the Mississippi River drainage 

basin with rivers generally flowing west-to-east into the 

Arkansas and Red Rivers; the drainage ends just south 

of the Red River. River systems from New Mexico and 

Colorado carry snowmelt, much of which evaporates as it 

traverses the Cross Timbers. Many of the minor streams are 

intermittent in the dry season and prone to flooding at other 

times. Stream discharge and number of perennial streams 

increases from west to east. Most of the Cross Timbers 

landscape in Texas supplies water to streams and rivers in 

the Trinity River and Brazos River drainage basins, both of 

which flow directly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Major Forest Types and Vegetative Communities

Vegetation in the Cross Timbers, currently a mosaic of 

grassland, savanna, and forest (Dyksterhuis 1948, Rice and 

Penfound 1959), has experienced major changes during 

and since the Holocene Epoch as shown by examination 

of the few pollen deposits that exist in the section (Bryant 

and Holloway 1985). The initial vegetation soon after the 

last glaciation was grassland. Oaks began to invade the 

grasslands 9,000 years ago; over several thousands of 

years, the vegetation gradually became oak savanna. Oak 

dominance increased with time; by 5,000 years ago, oak 

woodlands were prevalent. Pines began to appear at the 

eastern edge of the Cross Timbers about 2,100 years ago 

and oak-hickory-pine forests appeared 900 years later. Pine 

never developed dominance in the Cross Timbers but was 

restricted to isolated pockets along the eastern edge of the 

oak-dominated forests. Charcoal was evident in the pollen 

record since at least 5,000 years ago indicating that fire was 

an important disturbance factor (Albert and Wyckoff 1981).

Soils, climate, and fire are the dominant forces shaping the 

vegetation of the Cross Timbers. The savanna and forest 

vegetation is mostly restricted to the coarse textured soils 

derived from sandstones or granites (Dwyer and Santelmann 

1964, Rice and Penfound 1959), and grasslands are found 

predominantly on fine textured soil derived from shale 

and limestone. This suggests that the section has neither 

a true grassland climate nor a true forest climate, because 

either vegetation type can be supported depending on the 

soil texture and its effects on water consumption (Rice and 

Penfound 1959). The largest effect of climate is the gradient 

of decreasing moisture, which ranges from >100 cm annual 

precipitation in the east to 50 cm in the west and is strongly 

reflected in vegetation that decreases in stature and richness 

as the forests give way to savannas and eventually to 

grasslands. Fire was used by Native Americans for thousands 

of years and more recently by settlers to manipulate 

vegetation. Fire suppression and prevention over the past 

century have contributed to an increased component of 

woody vegetation over the past 60 years (DeSantis and others 

2010, DeSantis and others 2011).

Diversity is high, with >37 forest types occurring from 

moderately moist bottomlands to dry woodlands. The three 

most widely distributed forest types reflect this variability. 

The post oak/blackjack oak forest type covers the most area, 

4.2 million acres (25.1 percent) (Ridley 2012). Other species 

occurring in this forest type are black oak, hickory, southern 

red oak, white oak, shingle oak (Q. imbricaria), live oak

(Q. virginiana), shortleaf pine, blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), red 

maple, winged elm, hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), chinkapin 

oak (Q, muehlenbergii), shumard oak (Q. shumardii), 

flowering dogwood, and eastern redcedar (Juniperus 

virginiana). This forest type tends to be found on dry uplands 

and ridges (USDA Forest Service 2007).

Each of the two other widespread forest types—the dry 

mesquite woodlands and the mixture of sugarberry (Celtis 

laevigata), hackberry, elm, and green ash (Fraxinus 

pennsylvanica) on moderately moist sites—covers nearly 

1.7 million acres or 10 percent of the Cross Timbers. The 

bottomland type found along the floodplains includes 

sugarberry, hackberry, green ash, American elm 

(U. americana), and winged elm; associated species include 

cedar elm (U. crassifolia), slippery elm (U. rubra), boxelder 

(Acer negundo), pecan (C. illinoensis), blackgum, persimmon 

(Diospyros virginiana), honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), 

and red maple. The mesquite woodlands consist of mesquite 

(Prosopis glandulosa) and are associated with a variety of 

species depending on local conditions (USDA Forest Service 

2007).

History

This broad area between the eastern U.S. forests and the 

southern Great Plains was a landscape shaped by Native 

Americans for thousands of years. Fire was one of their 

primary tools for managing forest vegetation and reaping 

its benefits. It was also used for communication, warfare, 

hunting, and pasture improvement.
8 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

In Oklahoma, settlement became the dominant force in the 

late 1800s, which marked the first land run after the opening 

of the Indian Territories. By 1920, >18 million acres of 

native vegetation had been converted to cropland (DeSantis 

and others 2011), much of which had been prairie, but some 

was cleared forest land. Because much of this land was not 

suitable for agriculture, farm abandonment began very early; 

by 1950, only 16 million acres were still under cultivation, 

reduced to only 8 million acres today.

High Plains Section

The High Plains is the largest section, covering 

103.57 million acres, or 48.6 percent, of the Mid-South 

(U.S. Census Bureau 2011). The northern border is the 

Oklahoma State line, primarily with Kansas but also 

with southeastern Colorado (north of Cimarron County 

at the western end of the Oklahoma panhandle). The 

western border extends from the New Mexico State line 

(at Cimarron County) in the north to the eastern edge of 

the Cross Timbers section. According to the nomenclature 

of Bailey and others (1994) and Keys and others (1995), 

the section lies within the Southwest Plateau and Plains 

Dry Steppe and Shrub Province, and includes a small part 

of the Southern High Plains in the Oklahoma panhandle, 

the Texas High Plains in northwestern Texas, the Redbed 

Plains in southwestern Oklahoma, the Rolling Plains of 

north-central Texas, and much of the Edwards Plateau in 

central Texas; for purposes of this report, it also includes 

several counties bordering the Gulf of Mexico in the Rio 

Grande Plain of southern Texas. All of the cities in this 

section—except Enid, OK in the northeast—are in Texas: 

Amarillo, Wichita Falls, Lubbock, and Abilene in the 

center; Midland and Odessa in the northwest near New 

Mexico; Austin and San Antonio in the southeast; and 

Laredo, McAllen, Kingsville, and Brownsville in the Rio 

Grande River Valley on the Mexican border.

Landforms and Soils

This is an area of broad rolling plains formed by water-borne 

and eroded materials from adjacent mountain ranges, and 

subsequently uplifted and eroded into a moderately dissected 

topography. The underlying geology consists mostly of 

Paleozoic and Mesozoic marine deposits of limestone 

and sandstone. From south to north, the section gradually 

increases in elevation, from 80 to 100 feet in the Rio 

Grande Plain, to 600 to 4,000 feet in the Edwards Plateau 

and Rolling Hills, to 2,500 to 6,500 feet in the Texas High 

Plains. The northern half of the High Plains includes much 

of the Llano Estacado, which is almost absolutely flat; it is 

the largest isolated mountain-free area in North America 

(Morris 1997). Other features include the scenic Caprock 

escarpments separating the Rolling Hills from the Texas 

High Plains, the Edwards Plateau of Cretaceous limestone 

origin, and a number of river systems that provide locally 

dissected topography. Examples include the Canadian and 

Red Rivers in northern Texas and Oklahoma, the Brazos and 

Colorado Rivers in central Texas, and the Rio Grande River 

in southern Texas. The Ogallala Aquifer, a huge store of relict 

water, underlies the northern part of the High Plains. It is 

the most valuable resource in the section because it provides 

water year-round for agriculture.

The section also supports >16,000 playa lakes, natural diskshaped depressions that form ephemeral lakes, not by feeding 

from streams or springs but rather as a collection from local 

watersheds. They are lined with heavy clays that prevent 

percolation into the Ogallala Aquifer. Some 70 percent have 

been adapted as surface water reservoirs for agricultural use, 

but they also remain extremely important habitat and sources 

of water for wildlife (Bolen and others 1989).

Soils vary considerably depending on underlying 

geology. Alfisols, Mollisols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols are 

predominant but some areas also include Ustolls, Ustalfs, 

Usterts, Ochrepts, and Torrerts. Generally, these soils have a 

mesic-to-thermic temperature regime, a semi-arid moisture 

regime, and mixed or carbonatic mineralogy. Soils are deep, 

fine-to-coarse textured, and some (the Torrerts) have so 

much clay content that they crack during dry periods. Most 

soils are well drained and have limited moisture for use by 

vegetation during parts of the growing season. Nevertheless, 

they are well suited for agriculture, especially when irrigated.

Major Forest Types and Vegetative Communities

The native vegetation of the High Plains was a shortgrass 

steppe prairie and scattered woodlands that were near 

rivers and creeks (Drummond 2007). On the Texas High 

Plains and Rolling Plains, historical documents suggest that 

most of the area supported shortgrass prairie vegetation, 

as well as abundant woody vegetation such as cottonwood 

(Populus spp.) and mesquite along watercourses (Wester 

2007). Farther south, the Edwards Plateau hill country

was a fire-maintained ecosystem principally occupied by 

live oak (Fowler and Dunlap 1986), but fire prevention and 

suppression policies have resulted in expanded presence of 

native species such as Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei) and 

mesquite (van Auken 2000). And some elements of the Hill 

Country exhibit spectacular displays of flowers seasonally.

In southern Texas, the Rio Grande Plain was largely prairie 

that disappeared by the end of the 19th century, gradually 

replaced by forage grasses and the brush species that had 

always been inhabitants of the area during historical times 

(Inglis 1964).

This transition from pre-European settlement to current 

conditions has resulted in changes in fire regime and 

herbivory, which in turn have produced dramatic changes 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 9

Terrain in the northern High Plains of Texas; view of Palo Duro Canyon in the panhandle of Texas. (photo by Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M Forest Service) 

Playa next to irrigated farmland in the High Plains of Texas. (photo by James M. Guldin, U.S. Forest Service)
10 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

Terrain in the southern High Plains, on the Edwards Plateau in south central Texas. (photo by Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M Forest Service)

An example of the renowned scenic beauty in the region, on the Edwards Plateau in south central Texas. (photo by Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M 

Forest Service)
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 11

in vegetation. Van Auken (2000) described a pattern of 

overgrazing by domestic animals, which led to reductions 

in aboveground grass biomass; when coupled with wildfire 

control efforts, this reduction in biomass decreased the 

frequency of fire in these ecosystems. Fewer fires favored 

the encroachment, establishment, survival, and growth 

of woody plants. The issue is not the encroachment of 

invasive nonnative plants, which is more common farther 

east, but rather the expansion of native woody species such 

as mesquite and Ashe juniper into upland sites that are far 

beyond the range they occupied 200 years ago.

The three most widely distributed forest types—mesquite 

woodlands, juniper woodlands, and xeric oak woodlands—

cover >25.4 million acres (73.3 percent) of the forest land 

in the High Plains. Of these, the mesquite woodland type 

dominates, covering 15.9 million acres (46.1 percent), with 

mesquite making up the majority of the stocking. The 

species associated with mesquite vary considerably with 

changes in climate and soils (USDA Forest Service 2007). 

The juniper woodland type is also widely distributed, 

covering 6.26 million acres (18.1 percent). This woodland 

type is dominated by Ashe juniper, Pinchot juniper 

(J. pinchotii), and oneseed juniper (J. monosperma) in the 

Texas Panhandle (USDA Forest Service 2007).

History

Development of the High Plains falls into three periods—

the Spanish exploration from the 1600s to the 1700s; 

colonization from 1821 to 1863 followed by the Cattle Empire 

from 1860 to the early 1900s in Texas; and the rise of modern 

agriculture and ranching.

Early Spanish explorers reported that the southern Texas 

plains were predominantly a prairie interspersed with 

mesquite, pricklypear (Opuntia spp.), and other woody 

vegetation. Frequent natural fires kept much of the brush 

from overtaking the prairie (Fowler and Dunlap 1986, Inglis 

1964). Early Spanish explorers traveled through much of the 

northern area. Coronado crossed the Llano Estacado in 1651 

and reported seeing buffalo hunters on foot—these were 

later identified as ancestors of the Apaches. The Comanche 

arrived on horseback, displacing the Apaches by 1700, and 

holding the territory as their own for the next 150 years. In 

the decade following the Civil War, the U.S. Army led the 

way in displacing both the Comanche and the buffalo, but not 

without considerable difficulty (Rathjen 2012). Brownsville, 

TX was settled in 1846, following the establishment of 

Fort Brown, the base from which Zachary Taylor and the 

U.S. Army campaigned during the Mexican War. But the 

Rio Grande Valley remained sparsely populated until the 

first years of the 20th century, when the arrival of railroads 

and the development of irrigation gave rise to agricultural 

development and the expansion of European and Hispanic 

population (Vigniss and Odintz 2012).

Early ranchers thought that the grass would last forever in 

Texas. As a result, pressure from cattle, sheep, and goats 

increased and fences confined them—and natural fires 

became more infrequent. Many Rio Grande Valley counties 

had more sheep than cattle, with a half million sheep being 

grazed in the three decades after 1867. In 1880, southern 

Texas supported 45 percent of the State’s sheep population. 

In 1889, the Rio Grande Plains had the four leading sheep 

producing counties in the State; 10 of the top 15 sheep 

producing counties were in southern Texas. The peak decade 

in the Rio Grande Valley was from 1880 to 1890, at times 

exceeding 2 million head (Vigniss and Odintz 2012).

Similarly, in the northern part of the High Plains, ranching 

had begun in earnest by 1875. The first herds were sheep, 

but cattle ranching supported by large-scale commercial 

interests quickly displaced the sheep. Oil and natural gas 

were discovered in the High Plains in the 1920s; that industry 

helped support local economies by building roads for the 

farm-to-market transportation as well as major highways 

such as the historic U.S. Route 66 (Rathjen 2012).

The Great Depression was a major blow to agricultural 

interests in the High Plains. The poor economy and the 

drought associated with the Dust Bowl led to widespread 

abandonment of farms and displacement of farmers. Under 

the New Deal, programs were put in place to develop 

rural communities, with few as important as the Rural 

Electrification Act of 1936 (Rathjen 1998). During World 

War II, a number of new military bases and defense plants 

helped to further stabilize the economy (Rathjen 2012).

The last major advance in the High Plains was the refinement 

of farming, primarily using water from the Ogallala Aquifer, 

which by 1958 was irrigating about 4.5 million acres of 

farmland in the section. Current concerns are with the longterm sustainability of irrigation water from the Ogallala and 

the need to refine farming practices so that they use less 

water (Colaizzi and others 2008).

West Texas Basin and

Range Section

The West Texas Basin and Range section, informally 

called the Trans-Pecos, consists of 16 counties in western 

Texas, most of which are west of the Pecos River. It covers 

26.8 million acres, or 12.6 percent of the Mid-South (U.S. 

Census Bureau 2011). To the south, its border is the Rio 

Grande River on the Mexican border; its northern boundary 

is the east-west border between Texas and New Mexico; and 

to east, it abuts the central part of the High Plains 
12 chapter 1 | The Forests and People of the Mid-South

section. According to the nomenclature of Bailey and others 

(1994) and Keys and others (1995), the section lies in the 

Chihuahuan Semi-Desert Province and includes the Basin 

and Range and the Stockton Plateau. Population centers 

include El Paso at the very westernmost point and the town 

of Del Rio in the southeastern corner.

Landforms and Soils

The western two-thirds of this section is within the Basin 

and Range physiographic province and is of relatively recent 

geologic origin. Faulting in the Oligocene Epoch created 

the Rio Grande rift in New Mexico and western Texas and 

initiated volcanic terrain-forming activity (Bailey 1995). 

Since that time, erosion from uphill resulted in the current 

landscape of basins that are full of sediments and hills 

that continue to shed material in transport and deposition 

activities at the geologic time scale. Geologic strata consist 

of an undifferentiated mixture of marine deposits across the 

geologic time scale and volcanic rocks from relatively recent 

Miocene activity (Bailey 1995).

Elevation in this western area varies from 2,600 to 5,500 

feet. Landforms consist of plains with low mountains and 

a local relief of 1,000 to 3,000 feet, plains with high hills 

where relief is 1,000 to 3,000 feet, open high hills with a 

relief of 500 to 1,000 feet, and tablelands with a moderate 

relief averaging 100 to 300 feet. Soils are primarily 

Entisols, mostly arid poorly developed Torriorthents, and 

some Alfisols and Mollisols. These soils have a thermic 

temperature regime, an arid moisture regime, and mixed or 

carbonatic mineralogy.

The eastern third of the section, the Stockton Plateau, 

consists of open hills and tablelands. The area was formed 

from materials from adjacent mountains, shaped by 

continued erosion and transport processes. Its underlying 

geology consists of Paleozoic marine deposits and volcanic 

rocks of Tertiary origin. Elevations vary from 2,600 to 4,500 

feet, and local relief in most of the section ranges from 300 to 

1,000 feet. Soils are generally Aridisols—primarily Argids 

and Orthids in the uplands, and Vertisols such as the Torrerts 

on the basin floors. These soils have a thermic temperature 

regime and an arid and well drained moisture regime; they 

are shallow-to-deep, and of medium-to-fine texture.

Major Forest Types and Vegetative Communities

Vegetation in this section is adapted to arid conditions. Lower 

elevations support desert grasslands, grading into desert 

shrublands dominated by creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), 

yucca (Yucca spp.), ocatillo (Fonquieria splendens), and 

mesquite (Frye and others 1984, McMahan and others 1984); 

this type of vegetation appears to be expanding upslope as a 

Terrain in the West Texas Basin and Range, showing a view of the Davis Mountains. (photo by Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M Forest Service)
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 1 13

result of grassland disturbance over the last century 

(Schmidt 2012). At higher elevations, the desert grassland 

grades into open woodlands of pinyon—Mexican pinyon 

(P. cembroides), two-needle pinyon (P. edulis), and papershell 

pinyon (P. remota)—and juniper in the Davis Mountains, and 

then into open woodlands of ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa) 

and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the Guadalupe 

ranges (Frye and others 1984, McMahan and others 1984). 

Scattered throughout the section are smaller areas of riparian, 

holophytic, and other vegetation types adapted to specific site 

conditions (Schmidt 2012). These woodlands have more in 

common with the vegetation types of the Rocky Mountains 

than they do with forest types commonly found across the 

South.

The mesquite woodland type dominates woody plant cover 

in the West Texas Basin and Range section, covering 

4.38 million acres (54.9 percent) (Ridley 2012). Mesquite and 

screwbean mesquite (P. pubescens) along the Rio Grande 

River make up the majority of the stocking, with the many 

mesquite associates varying according to climate and soils 

(USDA Forest Service 2007). The juniper woodland type 

is also widely distributed; it covers 2.38 million acres (29.3 

percent) and includes Pinchot juniper, redberry juniper (J. 

erythrocarpa), Ashe juniper (but only rarely in easternmost 

areas), alligator juniper (J. deppeana), and oneseed juniper (in 

western areas). Associates include various woodland oaks, 

mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus), ponderosa 

pine, Arizona cypress (Cupressus arizonica), and Douglas-fir; 

pinyon is not present. (USDA Forest Service 2007). Together, 

these woodland types cover >84 percent of the forest land in 

the West Texas Basin and Range section.

History

Although the El Paso area was partially explored by 

Europeans beginning late in the 1500s, this area lying west 

of the Pecos River did not experience any real settlement 

until Texas became a part of the United States. The El Paso 

area was an important mountain pass—El Paso del Norte, 

or the Pass of the North—on the Camino Real that stretched 

from the Santa Fe Trail to the Mexican interior. Timmons 

(1990) reports that the position of the town on a major trade 

route was instrumental in its early development:

By the middle of the eighteenth century about 

5,000 people lived in the El Paso area—the 

largest population on the Spanish northern 

frontier. A large dam and a series of acequias 

(irrigation ditches) made possible a flourishing 

agriculture. The large number of vineyards 

produced wine and brandy said to have ranked 

with the best in the realm. In 1789 the presidio 

of San Elizario was founded to help in the 

defense of the El Paso settlements against the 

Apaches. 

With the Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, El Paso 

became a Mexican town. By then, flooding of the river had 

become a problem for the expanding agricultural interests 

in the area. The town officially became part of the United 

States in 1845, and the Mexican War of 1846 assured that all 

towns north of the Rio Grande would be part of the United 

States. But the combination of aridity, isolation, and roving 

Apache and Comanche bands discouraged rural settlement 

(Timmons 1990). Fort Bliss was established in 1854 to 

protect mining interests and otherwise provide a Federal 

army presence in the area.

The Civil War did not greatly affect the Trans-Pecos, and 

the arrival of the railroad in 1881 did much to change the 

future fortunes of El Paso. By the turn of the 20th century, 

a number of civic improvements were in place to promote 

manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and international trade 

with Mexico (Timmons 1990).

The rural counties of the Trans-Pecos (outside the El Paso 

metropolitan area) are still the least populated areas in Texas, 

and they are not growing. Of the 16 counties, 10 had population 

densities <5 people per square mile, compared to the State 

average of 96 per square mile in 2010. About three-quarters 

of the rural Trans-Pecos population live in eight or nine small 

towns. Only the growth of El Paso County, with about 800,000 

residents in 2010, differs from this pattern of sparse population 

and minuscule growth, in no small measure attributable to the 

economic influence of Fort Bliss, which has grown to be an 

important Army base. But in general, the cultural landscape 

of the Trans-Pecos, like the physical one, has more in common 

with the Southwest than with the rest of Texas.

Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 2 15

Climate

From east to west, the Mid-South becomes slightly warmer 

and dramatically drier, resulting in a prominent increase in 

potential evapotranspiration. The defining feature throughout 

is precipitation, specifically the lack of it and the pattern of 

its distribution. In essence, as one travels west from Little 

Rock to El Paso, average annual precipitation decreases by 

roughly 1 inch for every 20 miles—giving rise to a host of 

ecological variables that define the ecosystems between the 

two cities.

Coupled with this general trend are the long-term weather 

patterns conditioned by the oceanic Pacific Decadal 

Oscillation and the Atlantic Mean Oscillation, both of 

which in turn depend on variations in ocean temperatures. 

The Mid-South has experienced extended drought periods 

in the 1950s and mid-1990s, apparently associated with the 

warm phase or positive value of the Atlantic oscillation and 

the cool phase or negative value of the Pacific oscillation 

(Brown and others 2004). Both have changed again in 

the past few years with the Pacific oscillation going from 

warm to cool and the Atlantic oscillation going from cool 

to warm, a likely indication of increased droughts over the 

next 15 to 20 years.

Current Climate Trends

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands—From 1940 to 2006, annual 

temperatures in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands have been 

relatively uniform and consistent, averaging about 15.5 °C 

with an average annual low of 14 °C (1979) and a high 

nearing 17 °C (1955). County-level patterns in annual 

temperature from 1997 to 2006 were similar, with an average 

of 15.5 °C, a low of 14.2 °C, and a high of 17.2 °C (McNulty 

and others 2013).

Conversely, precipitation has been quite variable from year 

to year. From 1940 to 2006, average annual precipitation was 

about 1200 mm. Annual precipitation exceeded 1600 mm in 

four of those years (1945, 1958, 1974, and 1996), and was less 

than 900 mm in three of those years (1963, 1980, and 2005). 

County-level patterns from 1997 to 2006 were similar but 

with less variation at the extremes (an artifact of the shorter 

duration of that analysis), with average precipitation of 

1151 mm, a high of 1348 mm, and a low of 987 mm 

(McNulty and others 2013).

Precipitation in the Ouachita Mountains has been about 

15 percent higher than the statewide average in Arkansas. 

This variation is a classic example of the orographic effect that 

results when moisture-laden clouds approach from the west; as 

they lift to pass over the Ouachitas, water vapor condenses and 

falls as precipitation. Precipitation is lowest in August; when 

combined with high temperatures, this often creates conditions 

that are favorable for late-season drought. The occurrence of 

summer droughts is important ecologically, because drought 

can determine whether tree seedlings and other vegetation 

have adequate moisture to survive.

Cross Timbers—The climate of the Cross Timbers is humid 

subtropical. Summers are hot, with maximum temperatures 

well above 40 °C for many days; winters are generally mild, 

but cold arctic air can reduce temperatures to -25 °C in the 

north.

From 1940 to 2006, average annual temperatures have been 

relatively uniform and consistent, averaging about 18 °C 

with average annual lows <17 °C in two of those years (1979 

and 1983) and average annual highs exceeding 19 °C in four 

of those years (1954, 1956, 1996, and 2006). County-level 

patterns in annual temperature from 1997 to 2006 were more 

varied, with an average of 18.2 °C, a low of 14.9 °C, and a 

high of 22.6 °C. The reason for this variation is that some 

counties are near the Gulf of Mexico, whereas others are in 

Oklahoma at the northern boundary of the Cross Timbers 

(McNulty and others 2013).

Precipitation has been somewhat variable from one year to 

the next. From 1940 to 2006, average annual precipitation 

was roughly 950 mm. Annual precipitation exceeded 

1150 mm in five of those years (1941, 1957, 1974, 1991, and 

2004) and was < 700 mm in four of those years (1954, 1956, 

1963, and 2005). County-level patterns from 1997 to 2006 

were similar but with less variation at the extremes (an 

artifact of the shorter duration of that analysis), with annual 

precipitation averaging 917 mm, a low of 684 mm, and a high 

of 1316 mm. Precipitation fluctuations of this magnitude can 

Chapter 2.

The Changing Physical Environment
16 chapter 2 | The Changing Physical Environment

result in severe droughts—the most remarkable of which 

occurred in the 1930s and again in the 1950s (McNulty and 

others 2013).

Large scale catastrophic disturbances are not common 

in the region, with one exception—wildfire. Large fires 

are more likely to occur in dry years. A recent example 

is the Bastrop Fire in Texas in 2011, which burned more 

than 34,000 acres, destroyed more than 200 homes and 

commercial buildings, and caused 2 fatalities. Tornados 

are rare, with a return interval of about 3,000 years (Meyer 

and others 2002)—much longer than the 300- to 500-year 

life span of the major tree species of the Cross Timbers 

(Therrell and Stahle 1998). Damage from ice storms can 

be relatively widespread; they cause a lot of breakage, but 

do not usually kill a tree unless it is uprooted or its stem 

breaks below the live crown.

High Plains—The climate of the High Plains is humid 

subtropical, with hot summers and dry winters. From 1940 to 

2006, annual temperatures have been relatively uniform and 

consistent, averaging about 17.5 °C with annual highs of 

>18 °C in five of those years (1946, 1954, 1956, 1996, and 

2006) and annual lows of <17 °C occurring in 10 different 

years between 1956 to 1988 (but not recurring since). 

County-level patterns in annual temperature from 1997 to 

2006 were considerably more varied, with an average of 

17.5 °C, a high of 23.6 °C, and a low of 12.9 °C—again likely 

because of differences in county averages from the southern 

tip of Texas next to the Gulf of Mexico to the northern areas 

of Oklahoma and Texas (McNulty and others 2013).

Annual precipitation for the High Plains has been 

somewhat variable, but is generally much lower than the 

sections to the east. From 1940 to 2006, the average annual 

precipitation was about 600 mm. Annual precipitation 

exceeded 800 mm in three of those years (1941, 1991, and 

2004) and was < 400 mm in two of those years (1954 and 

1956). County-level patterns of average annual precipitation 

from 1997 to 2006 were similar, with an average of 595 

mm, an annual high of 891 mm, and an annual low of 338 

mm (McNulty and others 2013). Generally, in northern 

areas, May and September are the wettest months, 

and the period from October to April is dry (Wester 

2007). Similarly, in the Rio Grande Basin, the primary 

rainfall peak—April, May, and June—occurs because of 

thunderstorm activity, but the late summer peak—August 

and September—results from tropical disturbances in the 

Gulf of Mexico (Box and others 1978).

West Texas Basin and Range—Climate is subtropical 

and arid, with hot summers and dry winters. From 1940 to 

2006, annual temperatures have been relatively uniform and 

consistent, averaging about 17.6 °C with annual highs of 

>18.4 °C in three of those years (1950, 1954, and 2006) and 

annual lows of <17.0 °C in four of those years (1973, 1976, 

1979, and 1987). County-level patterns in annual temperature 

from 1997 to 2006 were slightly more varied, with an 

average of 18.0 °C, a high of 19.8 °C, and a low of 16.1 °C 

(McNulty and others 2013).

Precipitation is low. From 1940 to 2006, annual precipitation 

averaged 350 mm, with highs ≥ 500 mm in five of those 

years (1941, 1974, 1986, 1991, and 2004) and lows < 200 mm 

in three of those years (1951, 1953, and 1956). County-level 

patterns in annual precipitation from 1997 to 2006 were 

similar, with an average of 331 mm, a high of 500 mm, and a 

low of 213 mm (McNulty and others 2013).

Forecasts of Climate Change

The analyses in the Southern Forest Futures Project 

(Wear and Greis 2013) began with the development of two 

different hypotheses, or storylines, that relate greenhouse 

gas emissions to economic, demographic, technological, 

political, and environmental changes (Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change 2007). The two storylines applied 

in the Futures report were:

• A1B, featuring very rapid economic growth, a global 

population that peaks in mid-century and then declines, 

and makes assumptions about energy futures; and

• B2, featuring a growing population with intermediate 

economic growth focused on local solutions rather than 

global integration.

Those storylines were tested with three different global 

climate circulation models that could prevail over the 

next century—the Australian Commonwealth Scientific 

and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) model, 

the HadCM3 (“Hadley” model from the United Kingdom 

Meteorological Center), and the MIROC 3.2 model from the 

Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies (Joyce 

and others 2011).

The emissions storylines were further developed into 

scenarios for the national Resources Planning Act report 

(USDA Forest Service 2012) and Cornerstone Futures for the 

Southern Forest Futures Project. Storyline A1B corresponds 

to mid-range population growth (a 60-percent increase from 

2010 to 2060) and the highest per capita disposable personal 

income level; under this storyline, the South would support 

about 160 million people with per capita personal income 

of about $80,000 (2006 dollars) by 2060. Storyline B2 

projects a lower population growth (a 40-percent increase) 

and lower personal income; under this storyline, the South 

would support a population of 143 million people with per 

capita personal income of about $60,000. Thus, the four 

Cornerstone Futures (Wear and others 2013a) can be broadly 

summarized as follows:
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 2 17

• Cornerstone A is the MIROC GCM+A1B, characterized 

by high population growth and a vigorous economy

• Cornerstone B is the CSIRO GCM+A1B, characterized 

by high population growth and a moderate economy

• Cornerstone C is the CSIRO GCM+B2, characterized 

by low population growth and a vigorous economy

• Cornerstone D is the Hadley GCM+B2, characterized 

by low population growth and a moderate economy

The Southern Forest Futures Project then generated 

forecasts for 17 key issues southwide under each of the four 

Cornerstone Futures.

The purpose of this report is to dissect those southwide 

forecasts into forecasts for the Mid-South, and—where 

possible—to specify the likely effects in its four sections, 

which differ so markedly. The forecast of climate change 

for the Southern Forest Futures Project was prepared by 

McNulty and others (2013). Southwide, they predicted 

an increase in temperature under all four different 

Cornerstone Futures, but with more variability in forecasts 

of precipitation. Climate predictions range from wet and 

warmer to dry and warmer to dry and hot.

A closer look at the climate change predictions for the 

Mid-South reveals cause for concern. First and foremost, 

air temperature is forecasted to increase significantly 

from historical and current levels (table 1). None of the 

Cornerstone Futures, nor any of the model outputs published 

by other climate scientists for that matter, suggest that air 

temperatures will remain stable or will cool in the 50-

year forecasting period (2010 to 2060). Annual increases 

would vary from a 1.4 °C increase under Cornerstone D to 

a 2.7 °C increase under Cornerstone A; daily and monthly 

fluctuations could be larger. A temperature increase of 

2.7 °C would make locations in the Mid-South resemble 

current temperatures 200 miles farther south: Little Rock 

would be like current-day Baton Rouge, the Dallas-Fort 

Worth area would be like current-day Houston, which in turn 

would become more like current-day Corpus Christi.

A county-level analysis from 2010 to 2050 reveals some 

section-level patterns that could be important (fig. 2). Under 

Cornerstone A, the entire Mid-South would experience an 

average temperature increase of >1 °C, and all of the OzarkOuachita Highlands and West Texas Basin and Range sections 

would experience an increase of 2 °C. Under Cornerstone D, 

most of the northern High Plains and Cross Timbers sections 

are predicted to have average increases of 1.5 to 2 °C. Under 

all four Cornerstone Futures, the average temperature of the 

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands would increase by at least 1 °C. 

Cornerstone B forecasts an increase of <1 °C in the Rio Grande 

Valley of southern Texas, but >1.5 °C for northern Texas, 

Oklahoma, and Arkansas. In other words, although some areas 

would be less affected, no areas would be totally unaffected.

The forecasts of changes in precipitation are not as severe but 

are also less conclusive. In the Mid-South, all four Cornerstone 

Futures predict a decrease in average annual precipitation 

by 2060 (table 2); that average varies from 13 mm under 

Cornerstone C to nearly 200 mm under Cornerstone A. By 

2090, each of the decreases would be followed by an increase 

above the 2060 level, from a very small amount under 

Cornerstones A and C to >150 mm under Cornerstone B.

Table 1—Predited average annual temperature for 

the U.S. Mid-South as forecasted by four Cornerstone 

Futures

Cornerstonea prediction of average temperature

°C

Year A B C D

2010 18.6 18.0 18.5 18.6

2020 19.2 18.4 19.0 19.0

2040 19.9 18.9 19.4 19.4

2060 21.3 20.1 20.0 20.0

2090 22.5 20.7 21.0 20.9

a Each Cornerstone represents a general circulation model (MIROC3.2, 

CSIROMK3.5, CSIROMK2, or HadCM3) paired with one of two emission 

scenarios (A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, 

high energy use, and B2 representing moderate growth and use): A is 

MIROC3.2+A1B, B is CSIROMK3.5+A1B, C is CSIROMK2+B2, and D is 

HadCM3+B2.

Source: McNulty and others (2013).

Table 2—Predicted average annual precipitation for 

the U.S. Mid-South as forecasted by four Cornerstone 

Futures

Cornerstonea prediction of average precipitation 

mm

Year A B C D

2010 721 812 663 784

2020 677 735 710 659

2040 579 837 713 725

2060 525 729 650 717

2090 536 884 666 743

a Each Cornerstone represents a general circulation model (MIROC3.2, 

CSIROMK3.5, CSIROMK2, or HadCM3) paired with one of two emission 

scenarios (A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, 

high energy use, and B2 representing moderate growth and use): A is 

MIROC3.2+A1B, B is CSIROMK3.5+A1B, C is CSIROMK2+B2, and D is 

HadCM3+B2.

Source: McNulty and others (2013).
18 chapter 2 | The Changing Physical Environment

Change in temperature (°C)

0.14 – 0.49

0.50 – 0.99

1.00 – 1.49

1.50 – 1.99

2.00 – 2.60

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

Figure 2—Predicted change in air temperature from 2010 to 2050 for the U.S. Mid-South as forecasted by four Cornerstone Futures; each of 

which represents a general circulation model paired with one of two emission storylines—A1B representing low-population/high-economic 

growth, high energy use, and B2 representing moderate growth and use—(A) MIROC3.2+A1B, (B) CSIROMK3.5+A1B, (C) CSIROMK2+B2, 

and (D) is HadCM3+B2 (Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 2 19

However, monthly average precipitation does not fully 

represent the number or severity of individual events, 

nor are differences among months captured that could be 

ecologically significant (McNulty and others 2013). If the 

pattern of precipitation changes such that averages remain 

the same but the majority of precipitation occurs in winter 

months, the resulting summer droughts could be much 

more severe. Alternatively, if the major input of annual 

precipitation occurs in several short but intense events, the 

effects would be quite different from a distribution that 

occurred uniformly throughout the year.

The analysis at the county level from 2010 to 2050 also 

showed diverging geographic patterns of precipitation under 

the four Cornerstone Futures (fig. 3). Under Cornerstones A 

and D, a 20-percent reduction in average annual precipitation 

would occur across southeastern Texas from the Gulf 

of Mexico to the center of the State; and the rest of the 

Mid-South (except El Paso under Cornerstone A) would 

experience a decrease of 1 to 20 percent. Under Cornerstones 

B and C, more than half of the Mid-South would experience 

an increase in average annual precipitation: under 

Cornerstone B, annual rainfall would increase by 10 to 19 

percent from southwest to northeast across the entire West 

Texas Basin and Range section, in the southern High Plains, 

and in the southern quarter of the Cross Timbers; under 

Cornerstone C, rainfall would increase from the southern 

tip of Texas to the north—with increases of >30 percent 

for the Rio Grande Valley, from 10 to 30 percent from the 

lower Pecos Valley to Houston, and from 0 to 10 percent in 

about half the remaining Mid-South counties that stretch 

from the southern High Plains of west-central Texas into the 

Cross-Timbers of west-central Oklahoma. Not much relief is 

expected for the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, with decreases 

in annual precipitation forecasted under all four Cornerstone 

Futures, and two of the Cornerstone Futures forecasting a 

10- to 20-percent decrease for the Ouachita Mountains south 

of the Arkansas River. More rain in western Texas under 

constant temperatures could be advantageous for agriculture, 

ranching, and other activities that depend on abundant water, 

but more rain could also result in increased encroachment 

by native eastern redcedar, mesquite, and live oak across the 

western sections of the Mid-South.

To ensure accuracy, changes in precipitation should be 

evaluated within the context of air temperature changes. As 

temperatures increase in an ecosystem, water use through 

evapotranspiration also increases. Therefore, temperature 

increases would likely offset small increases in precipitation, 

resulting in more frequent water shortages and streamflow 

reductions. If precipitation remains at historical levels (or 

less), water shortage issues would likely increase, especially 

if rain events become more episodic. Another unknown 

is whether increased atmospheric activity associated with 

warmer temperatures will increasingly vary rainfall from 

one year to the next, thereby increasing the likelihood of 

significant rain events coupled with more frequent and more 

severe droughts.

In short, although the magnitude and temporal and spatial 

distribution of climate change are unknown, all indications 

suggest that some change is certain. And although wet 

and dry periods have always been cyclical, the cycles are 

becoming more extreme. Changes in precipitation are 

expected for some areas of the Mid-South, but not for others. 

Nevertheless, average temperatures will likely continue to 

increase.

Wildfire and Prescribed Burning

Stanturf and Goodrick (2013) described the prospective 

changes that might be expected across the South over the 

next 50 years, both within the context of wildfire and of 

prescribed burning under changing climate. They concluded 

that the hazard of wildfire will likely be higher, big wildfires 

will be more common, spring and autumn wildfire seasons 

will be longer, and severity of wildfire will lead to changes 

in vegetation types. They also predicted a paradoxical 

situation in which larger and more frequent prescribed 

burning is needed in a political environment that increasingly 

constrains the practice in response to health and safety 

concerns, air quality and smoke management challenges, and 

changing landscape patterns such as an expanding wildlandurban interface. These issues will likely be especially critical 

in the four sections of the Mid-South.

Fire is an integral part of the southern landscape. In the 

Mid-South, evidence points to the importance of fire in the 

forests and woodlands of the Ouachita-Ozark Highlands, 

the Cross Timbers, the High Plains, and the West Texas 

Basin and Range sections. Absence of fire on the landscape 

is directly responsible for some current forest and woodland 

management issues confronting the Mid-South. In the Cross 

Timbers and High Plains, examples include encroachment 

of native woody vegetation outside its former distribution, 

and changes in stem density and species composition in 

woodland communities; in the Ouachita-Ozark Highlands, 

the absence of fire has led to the dramatic decline of open 

pine-grassland habitats, and the flora and fauna that depend 

upon those habitats. But the growth of human populations, 

changes in societal infrastructure, and land-use shifts over 

the past century have fundamentally changed the ecological 

role of fire on the landscape, the scale at which fire can be 

used, and the potential for economic loss in the event of an 

uncontrolled wildfire. These changes will likely become 

more profound in a changing climate.

The relationship between drought and wildfire is well 

established. The drier conditions expected across the 

Mid-South under the Cornerstone Futures would result in 
20 chapter 2 | The Changing Physical Environment

Change in precipitation 

(percent)

-24 to -21

-20 to -11

-10 to -1

0 to 9

10 to 19

20 to 29

30 to 51

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

Figure 3—Predicted change in precipitation from 2010 to 2050 for the U.S. Mid-South as forecasted by four Cornerstone Futures; each of which 

represents a general circulation model paired with one of two emission storylines—A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, 

high energy use, and B2 representing moderate growth and use—(A) MIROC3.2+A1B, (B) CSIROMK3.5+A1B, (C) CSIROMK2+B2, and 

(D) HadCM3+B2 (Source: McNulty and others 2013). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 2 21

increased fire potential from 2010 to 2060, and the brunt 

of these changes would result in an increased wildfire 

potential—especially in the High Plains and Cross Timbers 

of Texas and Oklahoma (figs. 4 and 5). Compared to 

the marked seasonality of wildfire in the AppalachianCumberland highlands and the Coastal Plain, wildfires occur 

during all seasons of the year in the Mid-South (Stanturf 

and Goodrick 2013). By 2060, however, all four sections of 

the Mid-South are expected to experience higher wildfire 

potential, and a dramatic increase in summer wildfire 

potential is expected (fig. 6).

A prescribed fire (or prescribed burn) is a fire that is 

deliberately set under suitable weather conditions so that 

flames will run across a stand or landscape in a controllable 

and predictable manner; it is used by resource managers 

to achieve a desired ecological or silvicultural objective. 

The intensity of the fire depends on a number of factors, 

including the amount and moisture content of forest fuels 

(such as needles, twigs, branches, and fallen logs), local 

weather conditions including wind speed and wind direction 

within the context of local topography, and the patterns of 

ignition used to start and sustain the fire across the area 

being burned.

As conditions change across the Mid-South over the next 

several decades, the need for prescribed burning in forests 

and woodlands to reduce fuel and create (or sustain) desired 

vegetation communities and habitat conditions will probably 

increase. Conversely, if prevailing air temperatures increase 

and precipitation decreases as predicted, the windows 

of opportunity to ignite a safe fire will become more 

constrained. Other issues revolve around whether the smoke 

from prescribed burning will be tolerated by an expanding 

population in an expanding wildland-urban interface, and 

whether air quality over a wide area will be compromised. 

Increased urbanization would raise concerns about liability 

for damage from fires that escape containment, the localized 

effects of smoke on highway safety and human health, and 

the degradation of air quality during and after the burn.

Stanturf and Goodrick (2013) modeled the percentage of land 

area in the driest classes under four Cornerstone Futures 

(A, B, C, and D) for 2010 and again for 2060. Those data 

were analyzed in a change detection context—the monthby-month change in land area that is classified as driest 

under each of the Cornerstone Futures. The changes are 

predicted to be largest in spring and autumn—especially in 

Texas, which would experience a 10- to 20-percent increase 

in land area in the driest classes in those seasons. These 

results confirm a major concern about the effects of changing 

climate—that temperature changes would increase aridity 

earlier and later in the calendar year. Other related concerns 

include a longer season of conditions that favor wildland fire, 

a need for more attention to fire weather, and a reduction in 

the number of days that are suitable for prescribed burning.

Perhaps the most ominous concern for the Mid-South is not 

strictly the effects on conditions in forests, but rather the 

implications for growing season and soil moisture in the 

agricultural sector, especially the croplands of the Cross 

Timbers and those irrigated by the Ogallala Aquifer in the 

High Plains.

In summary, the use of prescribed burning as a management 

tool in forests, woodlands, and grasslands across the MidSouth will likely raise issues of concern that include difficulty 

in controlling prescribed fire, increasing limits on the 

weather conditions that are considered safe for burning, and 

overarching issues of air quality across landscapes. Issues 

associated with impacts on human health and safety will 

likely be greater in the highly populated Cross Timbers, as 

well as in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands where burning on 

Federal lands has become a resource management priority.
22 chapter 2 | The Changing Physical Environment

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

Wetter Drier

Figure 4—Annual fire potential in the U.S. Mid-South under current conditions in 2010, as simulated by four Cornerstone Futures; each of which 

represents a general circulation model paired with one of two emission storylines—A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, 

high energy use, and B2 representing moderate growth and use: (A) MIROC3.2+A1B, (B) CSIROMK3.5+A1B, (C) CSIROMK2+B2, and (D) is 

HadCM3+B2 (Source: Stanturf and Goodrick 2013). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 2 23

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

Wetter Drier

Figure 5—Annual fire potential in the U.S. Mid-South in 2060, as predicted by four Cornerstone Futures; each of which represents a general 

circulation model paired with one of two emission storylines—A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, high energy use, 

and B2 representing moderate growth and use: (A) MIROC3.2+A1B, (B) CSIROMK3.5+A1B, (C) CSIROMK2+B2, and (D) is HadCM3+B2 

(Source: Stanturf and Goodrick 2013). 
24 chapter 2 | The Changing Physical Environment

Potential Drought Index Change

Wetter No Change Drier

(B)

April

(A)

January

(D)

October

(C)

July

Figure 6—Change in seasonal fire potential, 2060, under Cornerstone A for the U.S. Mid-South during (A) January, (B) April, (C) July, and 

(D) October; each of the four Cornerstone Futures represents a general circulation model (MIROC3.2, CSIROMK3.5, CSIROMK2, or HadCM3) 

paired with one of two emission scenarios (A1B representing low-population/high-economic growth, high energy use; B2 representing moderate 

growth and use). Cornerstone A is MIROC3.2+A1B (Source: Stanturf and Goodrick 2013). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 25

Population, Demography, 

and Economic Activity

According to the U.S. Census, the population of the MidSouth increased from 20.3 million in 2000 to 24.2 million in 

2010—a 15.8-percent increase over the decade (U.S. Census 

Bureau 2011). That rate of population growth over five 

decades would result in a 79 percent population increase, 

with the Cross Timbers and High Plains sections leading 

both in absolute numbers and in the rate of increase. 

However, the forecasts in the Southern Forest Futures 

Project, which were prepared before the 2010 U.S. Census 

data were released, assumed a southwide population increase 

of only 59 percent. In 2010:

• The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section supported 

2.29 million people, 13 percent more than in 2000

• The Cross Timbers section supported 13.5 million people, 

20 percent more than in 2000

• The High Plains section supported 7.45 million people, 

18 percent more than in 2000

• The West Texas Basin and Range section supported 

0.93 million people, 16 percent more than in 2000.

Statewide, the largest impacts clearly were in Texas, which 

supported 25.15 million people in 2010—20.6 percent more 

than in 2000, more than triple the combined rate of Arkansas 

and Oklahoma. In the Cross Timbers, 26 of 111 counties 

grew >20 percent; three counties northeast of Dallas—

Denton, Collin, and Rockwall—together increased 

>50 percent, from 0.98 million to 1.52 million (U.S. Census 

Bureau 2011).

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands

The population of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands is 

distributed in small- to medium-sized cities and towns. 

This population grew from 1.25 million people in 1970 

to 2.29 million people in 2010, an increase of 83 percent; 

population density in 2010 was 61.8 people per square mile, 

up from 54.7 a decade ago. Of the 49 counties in the section, 

40 gained population and 9 lost population over the last 

decade. The four with the highest rates of population growth 

in the past 10 years are Benton County (44.3 percent) and 

Washington County (28.8 percent) in northwestern Arkansas 

near Fayetteville, and Faulkner County (31.6 percent) and 

Saline County (28.2 percent) in central Arkansas near Little 

Rock (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

According to U.S. Census reports for 2010, the demographics 

of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands mirrored the United States 

as a whole (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). Per capita income 

was $21,815, and median household income was $40,359; 

both of these values are slightly higher than the average for 

Arkansas, but lower than Oklahoma. Also in 2010:

• Education—82.9 percent of the population consisted 

of high school graduates and 20.5 percent consisted of 

college graduates, both less than the national average of 

85.0 percent for high school graduates and 27.9 percent for 

college graduates

• Age—6.7 percent of the population was <5 years, 

24.3 percent was <18 years, and 14.8 percent was >65 years

• Ethnicity—8.4 percent was African American, 4.8 percent 

was Native American, and 7.2 percent was Hispanic

• Income—17.3 percent was below the poverty level, slightly 

higher than the national average of 13.8 percent.

A comparison of economic data from the counties in this 

section with national averages, all derived from the 2010 

U.S. Census (U.S. Census Bureau 2011), was based on the 

proportional land area of the United States that the section 

occupies: the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands represented 

1.048 percent of the U.S. land area, but only supported 

0.74 percent of the U.S. population, 0.54 percent of 

manufacturing value, 0.44 percent of wholesale sales, 

0.67 percent of retail sales, 0.48 percent of accommodations 

and food services sales, and 0.64 percent of Federal spending 

(U.S. Census Bureau 2011). These data suggest an area less 

active in economic development than the national average.

Cross Timbers

The population of the Cross Timbers is concentrated in 

metropolitan areas. The large current population and 

expected explosion of population represents one of the 

biggest challenges to management of natural resources, not 

only within the Mid-South but also throughout the Southern 

Chapter 3.

The Human Footprint
26 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

United States. The population in this section grew from 

6.13 million in 1970 to 13.50 million in 2010, an increase of 

120 percent. Of its 110 counties, 93 gained in population 

(26 of which grew by >20 percent) and 17 lost population 

over the last decade. Population density was 154.6 people per 

square mile, up from 128.5 a decade ago.

The Texas State Demographer projected population increases 

through 2040 (Texas Forest Service 2008). The largest 

metropolitan area is the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area; 

its 2000 population of about 5.2 million is expected to grow 

to 15.3 million by 2040. Similarly, the Houston-SugarlandBaytown area had 4 million and is expected to range from 

8.4 to 11.1 million by 2040. Population and projected growth 

of metropolitan areas in the Cross Timbers of Oklahoma 

is much smaller.1 Together, the Oklahoma City and Tulsa 

metropolitan areas supported a population of about 

2.2 million in 2010, and are projected to be 3.6 million by 

2075. Much of this growth would be manifested in urban 

sprawl and an increase in the wildland-urban interface—

both of which would cause a major loss of open space. Over a 

5-year period in the 1990s, Texas lost nearly 900,000 acres of 

open space to development; urban land now occupies almost 

10 million acres.

Conservation of the central woodlands was determined to be 

a high priority by the Texas Statewide Assessment of Forest 

Resources (Texas Forest Service 2008). Although focused on 

Texas, these findings apply equally well to the Cross Timbers 

in Oklahoma. The woodlands of Texas and Oklahoma 

are a valuable resource for shade, recreation, wildlife, 

and environmental and watershed protections. Threats to 

these resources include exploding populations, landscape 

fragmentation, wildfires, invasive plants, oak wilt, and 

attacks by other pests. The ownership pattern characteristic 

of noncommercial hardwood forests is private livestock 

ranches and residential property.

The Texas A&M Forest Service has an array of programs 

that address issues such as oak wilt, forest stewardship, 

forest inventory, and wildfire prevention. But in addition, a 

new, integrated conservation initiative—the Central Texas 

Conservation Initiative [http://www.texasconservation.org 

(Date accessed: September 19, 2014)]—has been established 

by Texas A&M Forest Service to address other current and 

emerging problems in land ownership. From 2009 to 2014, 

this initiative has delivered four regional workshops annually 

1 Barker, Steve. 2012. 2012 demographic state of the State report—

Oklahoma State and county population projections through 2075. 

Oklahoma Department of Commerce; Policy, Research, and Economic 

Analysis Division. 184 p. (http://okcommerce.gov/assets/files/data-andresearch/Population_Projections_Report-2012.pdf.) [Date accessed: March 

19, 2014].

for targeted interface landowners in high-priority counties—

including a collaborative “Cross Timbers” initiative delivered 

with Oklahoma Forestry Services.

According to U.S. Census reports for 2010, the Cross 

Timbers has an economy that is stronger than the United 

States as a whole. Per capita income was $26,319, and the 

median household income was $52,983 (U.S. Census Bureau 

2011). Also in 2010:

• Education—83.8 percent of the population consisted of 

high school graduates, and 27.7 percent consisted of college 

graduates

• Age—7.5 percent of the population was <5 years, 

26.7 percent was <18, and 10.7 percent was >65 years

• Ethnicity—12.4 percent was African American, 

2.1 percent was Native American, and 23.4 percent was 

Hispanic

• Income—14.1 percent was below the poverty level, slightly 

higher than the national average of 13.8 percent.

A comparison of economic data from the counties in this 

section with national averages, all derived from the 2010 

U.S. Census, was based on the proportional land area of the 

United States that the section occupies: the Cross Timbers 

represented 2.47 percent of the Nation’s land area, but 

supported 4.37 percent of the U.S. population, 3.85 percent 

of the manufacturing shipment value, 4.25 percent of 

wholesale sales, 4.35 percent of retail sales, 3.52 percent of 

accommodations and food services sales, and 3.15 percent of 

Federal spending (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

High Plains

The High Plains section has a number of cities of varying 

sizes; San Antonio is the largest followed by important urban 

populations in Austin, Lubbock, Laredo, Midland-Odessa, 

Amarillo, and Abilene. Population grew from 3.84 million 

people in 1970 to 7.45 million people in 2010, an increase 

of 95 percent. From a relatively low overall population 

density of 46.6 people per square mile in 2010, growth was 

>20 percent over the past decade in 13 Texas counties that 

primarily encompassed the hill country from San Antonio 

to Austin and the Rio Grande Valley along the border from 

Laredo to Brownsville. Conversely, two counties—Cottle 

County in north-central Texas, and Cimarron County on 

the westernmost part of the Oklahoma Panhandle—lost 

>20 percent of their population in the past decade; both had 

<2,500 residents in 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

According to the U.S. Census reports for 2010, the High 

Plains section is fairly prosperous. Per capita income was 

$22,116, and the median household income was $44,662 

(U.S. Census Bureau 2011). Also for 2010:
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 27

• Education—77.2 percent consisted of high school 

graduates, and 23.6 percent consisted of college graduates

• Age—7.7 percent of the population was <5 years, 

27.3 percent was <18 years, and 11.2 percent was >65

• Ethnicity—5.1 percent was African American, 0.8 percent 

was Native American, and 51 percent was Hispanic

• Income—20.2 percent of the population was below the 

poverty level, higher than the national average of 

13.8 percent.

A comparison of economic data from the counties in this 

section with national averages, all derived from the 2010 

U.S. Census, was based on the proportional land area of 

the United States that the section occupies: the High Plains 

represented 4.52 percent of the Nation’s land area, but 

supported 2.41 percent of the U.S. population, 1.10 percent 

of the manufacturing shipment value and 1.26 percent of 

wholesale sales (probably reflecting the importance of its 

land-based agriculture), 2.26 percent of retail sales, 

1.94 percent of accommodations and food services sales, and 

2.34 percent of Federal spending (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

West Texas Basin and Range

This section has the large metropolitan area of El Paso in the 

western edge and the small city of Del Rio on the eastern 

edge, with only a few small towns scattered between the 

two. Population grew from 3.84 million people in 1970 to 

7.45 million people in 2010, an increase of 95 percent. By 

2010, population density was relatively low at 46.6 people per 

square mile. Two counties, El Paso and Loving, grew by 

>15 percent, with population totaling >800,000 in the former 

and only 82 people in the latter. Seven of the 16 counties 

in this section lost population in the past decade, with 

Culberson County decreasing by 19.4 percent since 2000 

(U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

According to the U.S. Census reports for 2010, the West 

Texas Basin and Range section is relatively poor. Per capita 

income was $16,884, and the median household income was 

$36,553 (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). Also in 2010:

• Education—70.1 percent of the population consisted of 

high school graduates, and 18.6 percent consisted of college 

graduates

• Age—8.0 percent of the population was <5 years, 

29.7 percent was <18 years, and 10.7 percent was >65 years

• Ethnicity—3.0 percent was African American, 0.7 percent 

was Native American, and 80.2 percent was Hispanic

• Income—25.1 percent was below the poverty level, nearly 

double the national average of 13.8 percent.

A comparison of economic data from the counties in this 

section with national averages, all derived from the 2010 

U.S. Census, was based on the proportional land area of 

the United States that the section occupies: the West Texas 

Basin and Range section represented 1.18 percent of the 

Nation’s land area, but supported only 0.30 percent of the 

U.S. population, 0.27 percent of the manufacturing shipment 

value and 0.13 percent of wholesale sales, 0.25 percent 

of retail sales, 0.19 percent of accommodations and food 

services sales, and 0.31 percent of Federal spending—in all, 

probably reflecting the extraordinarily rural nature of the 

section (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

Land Use Changes

The southwide forecast for land use changes in the Southern 

Forest Futures Project was prepared by Wear and others 

(2013a). That work was the basis for the changes forecasted 

for each of the sections in the Mid-South that were developed 

for this report. The key finding for discussion in the MidSouth is the expansion of urban population centers into forest 

land in the Cross Timbers, the southern High Plains, and the 

Ozark and Ouachita Mountains.

As well as describing the effects of urbanization (population 

and income) on climate (chapter 2), the four Cornerstone 

Futures (A through D) have underlying assumptions about 

timber prices that affect forecasts of land use (Huggett and 

others 2013, Wear and others 2013a):

• Cornerstone A is characterized by increasing timber prices 

in addition to moderately high population/income growth.

• Cornerstone B is characterized by decreasing timber prices 

in addition to moderately high population/income growth.

• Cornerstone C is characterized by increasing timber prices 

in addition to lower population/income growth.

• Cornerstone D is characterized by decreasing timber prices 

in addition to lower population/income growth.

The land use model developed by Wear and others (2013a) 

addresses most of the acreage in the 13 Southern States with 

county-level forecasts. However, for the central and western 

areas of Texas and Oklahoma, results derive from a land 

use model developed for the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains; 

this model, which is sensitive only to changes in population 

and income, assumes that changes in rural land uses will be 

proportional to their 1997 levels.

Urban Growth

The growth of urban population centers in the Cross 

Timbers, High Plains, and Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

will continue to be a key issue throughout the 21st century. 

According to the U.S. Census data, population growth rates 

from 2000 to 2010 were 15.8 percent for the Mid-South 

as a whole—13 percent in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, 

20.3 percent in the Cross Timbers, 18.4 percent for the High 

Plains, and 15.4 percent for the West Texas Basin and Range 
28 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

section. Spread forward over a 50-year period (2010 to 2060), 

this rate of growth considerably exceeds the projection of 60 

percent, the most drastic storyline (A1B) used in developing 

projections for the Cornerstone Futures (Wear 2013).

One effect of increasing population would be a major 

expansion of urban areas into the wildland-urban interface. 

Urban growth projections vary across the four sections of 

the Mid-South. Under Cornerstones A and B, which reflect a 

60 percent population growth rate from 1997 to 2060, urban 

land area across the Mid-South would more than double, 

occupying >8.5 million acres or 4.1 percent of total land area 

(table 3). Although all four sections are projected to have 

expanded urban areas by 2060, the rates of expansion would 

vary. In the West Texas Basin and Range section, urban land 

area is projected to expand by 57 percent to 338,500 acres, 

just >1 percent of total land area. In the High Plains, urban 

area would more than double to 4.889 million acres, or 

4.8 percent of total land area. The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

would have the largest percentage increase of urban land 

area, more than tripling to 1.62 million acres, or 6.8 percent 

of total land area, all centered in central and northwestern 

Arkansas. The Cross Timbers would experience the largest 

increase in urban land—projected to be 7.59 million acres 

and occupying 13.9 percent of the section by 2060, more than 

double that of 1997. Under Cornerstones C and D, which 

predict lower rates of population growth, urban area across 

the Mid-South is still expected to nearly double (table 4).

Table 3—Observed (1997) and forecasted (2010–2060) area of urban land in the four sections of the U.S. MidSouth, based on an expectation of large urbanization gains (Cornerstones A and B)

Area in urban use

Change from 

1997 to 2060

Section 1997 2010 2030 2040 2060 Area Percent

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - thousand acres- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cross Timbers 3,571.32 4,755.67 5,918.31 6,496.88 7,587.58 4,016.26 112.5

High Plains 2,118.25 2,772.43 3,572.02 3,982.05 4,889.50 2,771.25 130.8

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 715.10 973.87 1,436.92 1,696.06 2,334.79 1,619.69 226.5

West Texas Basin and Range 214.99 241.45 279.75 299.04 338.51 123.52 57.4

Total 6,619.66 8,743.41 11,206.99 12,474.03 15,150.38 8,530.72 128.9

Source: Wear (2013).

Table 4—Observed (1997) and forecasted (2010–2060) area of urban land in the four sections of the U.S. MidSouth, based on an expectation of moderate urbanization gains (Cornerstones C and D)

Area in urban use

Change from

1997 to 2060

Section 1997 2010 2020 2040 2060 Area Percent

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - thousand acres- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cross Timbers 3,571.32 4,802.41 5,358.32 6,043.35 6,742.91 3,171.59 88.8

High Plains 2,118.25 2,836.53 3,183.58 3,628.00 4,092.01 1,973.76 93.2

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 715.10 1,026.17 1,216.15 1,467.04 1,792.84 1,077.74 150.7

West Texas Basin and Range 214.99 244.78 261.44 283.21 302.64 87.65 40.8

Total 6,619.66 8,909.89 10,019.49 11,421.60 12,930.40 6,310.74 95.3

Source: Wear (2013).

What is non-Federal land?

For the purposes of this publication, non-Federal 

land includes land held by private organizations, 

individuals, families, local governments, Indian 

reservations, and U.S. States. It does not include 

U.S. military bases or lands managed by the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department 

of the Interior.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 29

Projected Decreases in Other Land Uses

This urban expansion comes at the expense of the common 

rural land base in the respective sections, especially under 

Cornerstone B. Because the largest concentration of forest 

land occurs in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands (fig. 7), any 

urban expansion around Little Rock in central Arkansas and 

Fayetteville in northwestern Arkansas would occur at the 

expense of forest area (fig. 8). Under Cornerstone B, forests 

would lose >868,000 acres, or 8.4 percent (table 5). The other 

three sections would lose slightly >330,000 acres of forest 

land area, for a loss of about 8 percent across the Mid-South. 

Similarly, under Cornerstone B, pasturelands would also 

decrease in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands (fig. 8), although 

the area lost is not very large compared to forest land loss. 

Cornerstone C, with lower expectations for urban expansion, 

projects about half of the loss in forest land, but still predicts 

a loss of slightly >4 percent in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

and across the Mid-South as a whole (table 6).

For western Texas and Oklahoma, there are differences in the 

definitions of undeveloped wild lands between the National 

Resources Inventory (U.S. Department of Agriculture 

2009) and Forest Service surveys that somewhat confound 

predictions about woodlands and rangelands (including 

forested rangelands). But in the Cross Timbers and the High 

Plains, any gains in urban area would clearly come at the 

expense of pastureland and rangeland, including forested 

rangeland (fig. 8). The impacts of such conversions would 

be most drastic in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, 

which is already expanding into pastureland toward the 

southeast and into open and forested rangelands toward the 

southwest. There would also be projected losses of rangeland 

and pastureland area in the corridor from Waco to Austin to 

San Antonio, as well as in projected decreases of rangeland 

in the Rio Grande Valley. Rangeland would decrease by 

about 2.5 million acres for Cornerstones C and D and about 

3.2 million acres for Cornerstones A and B. These losses 

would be concentrated in the urbanizing Cross Timbers area 

of eastern Texas and Oklahoma, especially around Dallas 

and Austin, and along the Mexican border (Wear 2013).

Forest Ownership

History

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands—Initially associated with 

railroad construction for ties and bridges, commercial 

logging of virgin shortleaf pine timber began in earnest 

during the latter part of the 19th century. The larger logging 

and manufacturing operations in the region, such as the 

Missouri Lumber and Mining Company mill at Grandin, 

MO, produced 200,000 board feet of lumber a day (Smith 

1988). In 1909, the lumber industry supported nearly 

75 percent of Arkansas wage earners (Guldin 2008). The 

Ouachitas were more completely cutover than the Ozarks 

for a number of reasons. In the Ouachitas, the shortleaf 

pine used to mill the valuable yellow pine lumber was 

(and still is) concentrated on the ridges and south-facing 

slopes. Compared to the Ozarks, the areas of south-facing 

slopes in the Ouachitas are vastly larger; this meant that 

logging could be more efficiently conducted (Smith 1988). 

In addition, railroad tracks were more easily engineered and 

built in the Ouachitas than the Ozarks; the long ridges in 

the Ouachitas are oriented primarily from east to west, and 

the broad U-shaped valleys that separate the ridges made 

for easier access than in the uplifted and dendritic Ozark 

Plateau, especially in the rugged Boston Mountains. Smith 

(1988) reported that some of the most valuable parcels of 

land were the few choke points in the mountain gaps of the 

Ouachitas through which railroads had to travel to open up 

the lumbering of the next broad ridge. Although the Ozarks 

supported abundant stands of shortleaf pine and white oak 

for furniture and stave mills, its terrain limited stand size. 

Mechanized operations to haul cut timber in the Ozarks 

were, and still are, much more difficult than in the Ouachitas.

The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section supports a large area 

of national forest land, by far a larger proportion of Federal 

forest land than in the other areas of the Mid-South. President 

Theodore Roosevelt established the Arkansas National Forest 

(renamed as the Ouachita National Forest in 1926) in 1907, 

and the Ozark National Forest in 1908 (Bass 1981), both by 

proclamation.

Industrial ownership of timberland began in the last years of 

the 19th century when two Iowa brothers, Hans and Herman 

Dierks, established the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company in 

Arkansas and the Choctaw Lumber Company in Oklahoma. 

They set up sawmills in several towns in Oklahoma (Valiant, 

Broken Bow, and Wright City) and Arkansas (Dierks and 

Mountain Pine), and bought a lumberyard in DeQueen, AR 

(Walker 1991). Their lands were primarily in the Ouachita 

Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma, with some on the 

Athens-Piedmont Plateau and the upper western Coastal 

Plain just to the south of the Ouachitas. Within 30 years, the 

company amassed some 1.8 million acres of forest land in 

the Ouachitas. In 1968 and 1969, family fortunes suffered 

a reversal, and the Dierks’ forest holdings were acquired 

by Weyerhaeuser Company, which established its Southern 

Timberlands headquarters in Hot Springs, AR. In the past 

decade, these timberlands are once again changing hands, 

from forest products industry ownership to timberland 

investment management organizations and real estate 

investment trusts.

Other Mid-South sections—As directed by Congress, the 

Forest Service has conducted inventories of the Nation’s 

forest lands since the 1930s; eight national forest survey 

reports and many more regional and State reports have been 
30 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

0 – .20

.21 – .40

.41 – .60

.61 – .80

.81 – 1.0

Boundaries

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

(B)

Forest

(A)

Urban

(D)

Pasture

(C)

Cropland

(E)

Range

Concentration of 

non-Federal land 

(percent)

Figure 7—Concentration of non-Federal land in the U.S. Mid-South that is classified as (A) urban, (B) forest, (C) cropland, (D) pasture, 

and (E) range, as of 1997 (Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture 2009). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 31

< -0.25

-0.25 to -0.10

-0.10 to -0.03

-0.03 to 0.30

0.30 to 0.10

0.10 to 0.25

> 0.25

Boundaries

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

(B)

Pasture

(A)

Forest

(C)

Range

Change in land use

Figure 8—Change in land uses, 1997 to 2060, in the U.S. Mid-South based on an expectation of large urbanization gains and decreasing timber 

prices, for land that is classified as (A) forest, (B) pasture, and (C) range (Source U.S. Department of Agriculture 2009). 

Table 5—Observed (1997) and forecasted (2010-2060) area of non-Federal forest land in the four sections of the 

U.S. Mid-South, based on an expectation of large urbanization gains and decreasing timber prices (Cornerstone B)

Area in forest use

Change from 

1997 to 2060

Section 1997 2010 2020 2040 2060 Area Percent

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - thousand acres- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cross Timbers 4,582.04 4,500.57 4,447.78 4,338.32 4,250.32 -331.72 -7.2

High Plains 116.34 116.19 115.91 115.32 114.48 -1.86 -1.6

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 10,355.32 10,216.25 10,086.52 9,826.35 9,486.59 -868.73 -8.4

West Texas Basin and Range 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0

Total 15,053.70 14,833.01 14,650.22 14,279.99 13,851.39 -1,202.31 -8.0

Source: Wear (2013).
32 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

produced in the past 75 years. The data and interpretations 

from those reports have been instrumental in economic 

development and the establishment of policy for management 

of forest lands at the State, regional, and national level. 

Among the great advantages of the survey is the opportunity 

to chart changes in forest conditions over time.

However, in the past, the areas surveyed have been limited 

to those that support extensive commercial timberlands. 

In the Mid-South, the only survey units with repeated 

measurements are in the Ozark and Ouachita areas 

of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Repeated measurements 

in Oklahoma were limited to 18 eastern counties that 

encompass the western Ouachita Mountains. In these 

counties, forest surveys were conducted in 1956, 1966, 1976, 

1986, 1992, and 2008. Consequently, long-term trends in 

growth, yield, mortality, utilization, and forest conditions in 

the forests of eastern Oklahoma are well known.

Data from repeated survey measurements are not available 

for counties outside eastern Oklahoma or from the 

eastern boundary of the Cross Timbers westward through 

Oklahoma and Texas, probably because these areas were 

not a source of raw materials for industrial development. 

But at the beginning of the 21st century, forestry officials 

in Texas and Oklahoma found that some issues required 

technical analyses that employed the kinds of data that 

are collected in the forest survey. Examples include the 

encroachment of woody vegetation; the expansion of 

burgeoning urban population centers into surrounding 

forests, woodlands, and rangelands (including forested 

rangelands); and forest and woodland fuel conditions 

that support increasingly severe wildfires that threaten 

residential development. What followed was an expanded 

forest survey in the 211 counties of western Texas (begun in 

2004) and the 59 counties of western Oklahoma (begun in 

2009). These new surveys are aimed at informing State and 

Federal agencies and other natural resource professionals 

about the attributes of all forests and woodlands, regardless 

of their commercial value.

A single round of the forest survey gives essentially a point 

estimate in time about the conditions of the vegetation that 

are sampled on the plot. A second visit to the same plot 

after 5 or 10 years gives an entirely new kind of data—

trends in vegetation growth, removal, mortality, as well 

as a host of other variables that can only be determined 

from repeated visits. So although the data from the first 

survey measurements in western Oklahoma and Texas have 

been informative, the more valuable trend data will not be 

available until subsequent visits to the same sample plots 

have been made.

In the absence of long-term data, literature and historical 

accounts have provided clues about the ways in which woody 

plant distributions have changed and the ways in which 

woody plants were used in the three western sections of the 

Mid-South. For example, the forests of the Cross Timbers 

likely provided timber for local firewood and buildingconstruction needs, and larger trees were probably used for 

railroad ties, although these uses are poorly documented. In 

general, because trees from Cross Timbers forests are small 

and somewhat scattered, timber is of low value and quality; 

very few forests were cleared for agriculture because of 

the poor quality of the soil, and much of the land was only 

suitable for grazing. Therefore, the land was put to use for 

cattle production.

The Cross Timbers in Texas and Oklahoma shared a similar 

history, although settlement and clearing for cropland began 

much earlier in Texas. Again, only the best lands were 

cleared for and remained in agriculture. Much of the Cross 

Table 6—Observed (1997) and forecasted (2010–2060) area of non-Federal forest land in the four sections of 

the U.S. Mid-South, based on an expectation of moderate urbanization gains and decreasing timber prices 

(Cornerstone C)

Area in forest use

Change from 

1997 to 2060

Section 1997 2010 2020 2040 2060 Area Percent

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - thousand acres- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cross Timbers 4,582.04 4,510.84 4,478.97 4,449.96 4,410.01 -172.03 -3.8

High Plains 116.34 116.14 115.95 115.84 115.57 -0.77 -0.7

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 10,355.32 10,215.68 10,135.17 10,037.04 9,900.33 -454.99 -4.4

West Texas Basin and Range 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0

Total 15,053.70 14,842.66 14,730.08 14,602.85 14,425.92 -627.78 -4.2

Source: Wear (2013).
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 33

Timbers forest land was not heavily exploited because of the 

low value of the timber and the poor soil.

The woodlands of the High Plains section in Texas and 

Oklahoma and of the West Texas Basin and Range section 

have been expanding largely through changes in fire regime. 

Before European colonization, grassland fires may have 

burned extensive areas; trees such as junipers would have 

been killed outside of floodplains and other moist sites and 

areas where locally rugged topography would have impeded 

the spread of grassland fires. However, grassland fires became 

less frequent after European settlement and have become 

even less common over the past 60 years with the advent of 

increased agricultural activity and modern fire suppression. 

The result has been a gradual expansion of woody vegetation 

and a slow replacement of native grasslands with woodlands 

in natural landscapes (van Auken 2000).

Recent Trends

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands—Of the 14.925 million acres 

of forest land in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, a substantial 

portion occurs in public lands. The two large national forests 

in this section, the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest and the 

Ouachita National Forest, combine for a total of 2.7 million 

acres, 18.3 percent of all forest land in the section. Other 

Federal lands (Fort Chaffee in western Arkansas and lands 

managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers along the 

Arkansas River) total >550,000 acres; and State, county, and 

municipal holdings add about 270,000 acres. This brings the 

total public-forest land base to 3.66 million acres, or nearly 

25 percent of Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. Of the remainder, 

1.29 million acres (8.7 percent) are owned by the forest products 

industry, and 9.974 million acres (66.8 percent) are held by 

other (nonindustrial) private forest owners (Ridley 2012).

One way to study the changes in forest ownership patterns 

is to analyze data collected several decades ago. Two 1988 

Arkansas surveys—one in the Ouachitas (Hines 1988a) 

and the other in the Ozarks (Hines 1988b)—and the 1993 

Oklahoma forest survey (Miller and others 1993) contain 

data for all the counties covered by this report, plus three 

counties (White in Arkansas, Bryan and Muskogee in 

Oklahoma) that were stratified into other Mid-South 

sections for the Southern Forest Futures Project analysis. 

Those datasets (minus the White/Byran/Muskogee data) 

approximate the conditions that existed two decades ago and 

have been termed “1990 data” for the purposes of this report.

Interpreting these data requires an understanding of the 

distinction among several forest classifications: forest land, 

which encompasses timberland, woodland, and reserved 

timberland; timberland, which is capable of producing at least 

20 cubic feet of commercial-grade wood per acre per year; 

woodland, which is limited to producing <20 cubic feet of 

commercial-grade wood per acre per year because of poor site 

conditions; and reserved timberland, which has been removed 

from wood production through Federal or State law (Hines 

1988a, Hines 1988b, Miller and others 1993). Additional 

complexities, including differences in survey design, variables 

collected, and data processing procedures, make using trend 

information from past surveys in comparison with the current 

survey somewhat problematic (Rosson and Rose 2010).

Despite these complexities, ownership of timberland 

reported in the 1990 survey differed from the 2011 forest 

survey in a number of ways. First, forest land area appears 

to have increased from 14.230 to 14.925 million acres 

over the past 20 years; however, whether the increase is an 

artifact of the changing survey design or a real difference 

is difficult to determine. Second, the area of public land 

appears to have increased from 2.495 to 2.597 million acres, 

reflecting one of the most important additions to the Federal 

land base in this section—the 1996 land exchange between 

the Ouachita National Forest and Weyerhaeuser Company, 

which transferred about 100,000 acres in Oklahoma 

and southwestern Arkansas from industry ownership 

into national forest ownership. In total, publicly owned 

timberland (including Federal, State, county, and municipal) 

appeared to increase by >250,000 acres between the two 

surveys (from 3.130 million acres in the 1990 survey to 3.392 

million acres in 2011) (Ridley 2012).

By far the most significant change in forest land ownership 

has been in the private sector, specifically the change 

from ownership by the forest products industry to other 

commercial ownerships. The forest products industry, which 

held 1.915 million acres of timberland in 1990, decreased its 

holdings by about 600,000 acres to 1.291 million acres by 

2011. Similarly, other commercial owners, primarily focused 

on timberland investments—timber investment management 

organizations and real estate investment trusts—have 

increased their holdings by about 600,000 acres from 

0.693 million acres in the 1990 survey to 1.314 million 

acres by 2011 (Ridley 2012). Caution is required in 

interpreting these apparently matching losses and gains 

in the absence of enough data points to calculate reliable 

long-term trends (described earlier). In addition, differences 

between forest industry and other commercial ownerships 

may be misclassified—when determining land ownership, 

survey crews tend to rely on tax files rather than the more 

accurate original deed files in county courthouses. For 

example, forest land under the stewardship of a timber 

investment group may have tax records still linked to the 

parent company; in such situations, the ownership category 

may be incorrectly identified as a forest products industry. 

But despite these caveats, it appears that a trend common 

elsewhere in the South is now occurring in the Ozark and 

Ouachita Highlands—the forest products industry has been 

selling or transferring timberland to timber investment 
34 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

groups. The driving forces behind this transition are the high 

capital value of standing timberlands and the more favorable 

tax treatment of investment properties than company-owned 

assets (Hickman 2007).

Other privately owned timberland has also changed between 

the two surveys, reported at 7.565 million acres in 1990 

compared to 8.082 million acres in 2011. In part, this can 

be attributed to the success of national efforts such as the 

Conservation Reserve Program and Wetlands Reserve 

Program, which were established to reforest marginal 

agricultural lands, or to the accidental conversion of 

agricultural land such as pastures to timberland through 

old-field succession. But it may also be an artifact of the 

differences in procedures between the two survey periods 

(Rosson and Rose 2010).

Other Mid-South sections—Agriculture has been the major 

cause of losses in forest land, woodland, and rangeland. The 

uses of Cross Timbers forest land include recreation, grazing, 

hunting, and firewood collection. A recent study of 143 Cross 

Timbers stands in Oklahoma found that over the past 50 

years about 40 percent of the stands were <10 percent 

disturbed and 65 percent were <50 percent disturbed 

(Stallings 2008). Forest ownership in the Cross Timbers is 

mainly private (>90 percent) and mostly in small holdings 

by individuals, partnerships, and corporations. These forests 

and woodlands are considered to be valuable resources for 

shade, recreation, wildlife, environmental, and watershed 

protection. The biggest threats to their sustainability are 

population growth, landscape fragmentation, wildfires, 

invasive species, oak wilt, and attacks by other pests.

In general, water and soils that enable cultivation are more 

available in the High Plains than in the Cross Timbers or 

the West Texas Basin and Range sections. Water from the 

Ogallala Aquifer, the largest U.S. groundwater reserve, 

supports cropland irrigation, municipal water use, and 

manufacturing (Drummond 2007).

Forecasts of Forest Ownership

The forest land ownership predictions that Butler and 

Wear (2013) developed for the Southern United States used 

existing survey data from repeated measurement plots, and 

as discussed earlier in this report, do not include results 

from the survey that was recently begun in the West Texas 

Basin and Range, the Cross Timbers, or the High Plains. 

For this reason, many of their forecasts would have only 

marginal application for much of the Mid-South. The 

exception is the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, primarily in the 

Ouachita Mountains, where changes in ownership to timber 

investment groups from Weyerhaeuser and other forest 

products companies likely will have some small effects on 

the nature of forest holdings.

Combining two different datasets—one from a 2006 survey 

of southern forest land ownerships2 and the other from a 

2007 survey of woodland and rangeland ownerships in 

western Texas3—showed that the Mid-South is unique 

among southern landscapes in several aspects of forest 

ownership, as described in the following paragraphs.

More than 16 percent of forest area in the Mid-South is in 

public ownership, primarily in the two national forests in 

Arkansas. By comparison, only 5 percent of woodlands and 

rangelands is publicly owned. The history of logging virgin 

forests and recovery of that cutover terrain in the last century 

prompted legislation that brought some of those cutover 

forests into Federal ownership. No similar outcry about 

loss of woodlands and rangelands occurred, even though 

woodland and rangeland ecosystems underwent similar 

kinds of exploitation and abandonment during agricultural 

conversion over the same period.

Private forest ownerships in the Mid-South, and especially 

family ownerships, have smaller forest holdings than 

woodland or rangeland holdings. Among all private 

ownerships, tracts <500 acres make up 54 percent of forest 

land area, but only 23 percent of woodland and rangeland 

area (table 7). For larger ownerships, 37 percent of private 

timberland area is in tracts ≥1,000 acres, compared to 

66 percent of woodland and rangeland area. For familyowned properties, tracts <500 acres make up 66 percent 

of forest land area, compared to 27 percent of woodland 

and rangeland area in tracts of that size; and 25 percent of 

family forest lands are in tracts ≥1,000 acres, compared 

to 62 percent of family-owned woodlands and rangelands.

(table 8).

Forest land owners and woodland or rangeland owners in 

the Mid-South have similar tenure of land ownership and 

similar reasons for owning their land. Of those responding 

to the survey, rangeland and woodland owners tended to be 

more recent owners, with 53 percent having acquired their 

property within the past 25 years compared to 27 percent 

of forest land owners (table 9). The percentage of owners 

with ≥50 years of tenure was about the same, <5 percent, 

for both sectors. Under the category of family ownership, 

individual or joint ownerships were by far most common 

(reported by 89 percent of timberland owners and 94 percent 

of woodland and rangeland owners), followed distantly by 

family partnerships at about 3 percent of owners across the 

board and trusts at about 6 percent of forest land owners and 

2 Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United States. 

2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

3 Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and 

individuals who own rangeland and woodland in western Texas, 2007. 

Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 35

Table 7—Percent of land area in all private ownership 

among forest lands, rangelands and woodlands based on 

holdings of a given size, across the U.S. Mid-Southa,b

Size of land 

holding Forest land

Rangeland and 

woodland

acres - - - percent of responding landowners - - -

1-9 1.5 0.7

10-19 1.4 0.4

20-49 9.0 2.8

50-99 13.0 2.0

100-199 12.4 7.1

200-499 16.8 10.1

500-999 8.6 11.2

1,000-4,999 10.9 29.7

5,000-9,999 3.4 8.8

≥10,000 22.8 27.4

<500 54.2 23.0

≥1,000 37.1 65.9

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United 

States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research 

Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, 

Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and 

individuals who own rangeland and woodland in western Texas, 2007. 

Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

Table 8—Percent of land area in private family 

ownership among forest land, rangeland and woodland 

based on holdings of a given size, across the U.S. 

Mid-Southa,b

Size of land 

holding Forest land

Rangeland and 

woodland

acres - - - percent of responding landowners - - -

1-9 1.9 0.8

10-19 1.8 0.4

20-49 11.2 3.3

50-99 15.6 2.4

100-199 15.2 8.2

200-499 19.9 11.8

500-999 9.2 11.0

1,000-4,999 12.4 30.0

5,000-9,999 3.8 10.4

≥10,000 8.9 21.7

<500 65.6 26.9

≥1,000 25.2 62.1

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United 

States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research 

Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, 

Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and 

individuals who own rangeland and woodland in western Texas, 2007. 

Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

Table 9—Percentage of land held, by years of tenure, 

for owners of forest land in the Mid-South compared to 

owners of rangeland and woodland in western Texasa,b

Ownership tenure Forest land

Rangeland and 

woodland

acres - - - percent of responding landowners - - -

< 10 11.3 14.8

10-24 16.0 38.1

25-49 68.3 45.7

≥50 4.4 1.3

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United 

States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research 

Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, 

Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and 

individuals who own rangeland and woodland in western Texas, 2007. 

Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.
36 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

2 percent of woodland and rangeland owners. Both sectors 

also reported similar motivations for owning their property; 

common reasons included being part of a farm or ranch, 

passing land to children or heirs, having the opportunity 

to hunt and fish, and enjoying beauty, scenery, and privacy 

(table 10).

Most landowners have not done any active management on 

their lands in the past 5 years. However, of landowners who 

did report conducting management activities, woodland and 

rangeland owners seemed to be more active than forest land 

owners (table 11). Twelve percent of woodland and rangeland 

owners reported cutting trees, compared to 4 percent of 

forest land owners. Fire-hazard reduction treatments were 

applied by 19 percent of woodlands and rangeland owners, 

and 12 percent of forest land owners. More than 10 percent 

of rangeland and woodland landowners reported applying 

chemicals on their property, compared to <5 percent of forest 

land owners. Fewer than 10 percent of landowners in either 

group reported they had conducted road and trail maintenance 

or wildlife habitat improvement activities. Although several 

questions in the survey were asked of one group but not the 

other (table 11), responses suggest that forest land owners 

have concerns about uninvited recreation and trespass that are 

probably shared by rangeland and woodland owners. Nearly 

30 percent of rangeland and woodland owners have conducted 

invasive plant control activities; this suggests that they have 

problems not with nonnative species necessarily but rather 

with encroachment by redcedar, live oak, and other native 

woody vegetation on upland sites.

Fewer than 15 percent of family private landowners preferred 

receiving management advice (table 12). Of those who do, 

woodland and rangeland owners reported more interest in 

the different approaches to receiving advice than forest land 

owners. Printed materials were preferred by 14 percent of 

rangeland and woodland owners, compared to <10 percent 

of forest land owners. Fewer than 10 percent of landowners 

preferred online sources, workshops, or video media, all 

increasingly common tools used by State Extension experts. 

Talking with other landowners or resource professionals was 

preferred by about 10 percent of landowners. But talking with 

contractors, visits to demonstration areas, or membership 

in a landowner organization were preferred by <5 percent 

of landowners. Clearly, there are challenges in providing 

effective technical expertise and management advice to 

landowners, perhaps foremost among them the scarcity of 

landowners who are interested in receiving that advice.

Finally, rangeland and woodland owners appear to have 

higher levels of education than forest land owners in the MidSouth (table 13). Nearly 24 percent have graduate degrees 

compared to 18 percent of forest land owners, and more than 

40 percent have a college degree compared to 27 percent of 

Table 10—Reasons reported for owning forest land or rangeland and woodland acreage in the Mid-South 

by families who ranked objectives as very important (1) or important (2) on a seven-point Likert scalea,b

Objective for ownership Forest land Rangeland and woodland

- - - - - - percent of responding landowners - - - - - - 

Enjoyment of beauty or scenery 35.9 40.1

Protection nature and biologic diversity 26.4 30.0

Investment 25.5 34.7

Part of residence or vacation home 39.6 36.3

Part of farm or ranch 24.6 34.3

Privacy assurance 27.9 37.7

Passing land on to children or other heirs 33.1 38.3

Nontimber rangeland and woodland products 5.0 5.4

Production of firewood or biofuel 9.5 1.8

Production of sawlogs, pulpwood, other timber products 2.4 1.6

Hunting or fishing 15.7 26.8

Recreation other than hunting or fishing 13.4 24.4

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research 

Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and individuals who own rangeland and woodland in western 

Texas, 2007. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, 

Amherst, MA 01003.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 3 37

Table 11—Management activities conducted by family landowners on forest land or rangeland 

and woodland ownerships in the past 5 years in the Mid-South as reported by responding family 

landownersa,b

Management activity Forest land Rangeland and woodland

- - - - - - percent of responding landowners - - - - - - 

Timber or tree harvest 4.1 11.7

Collection of non-timber forest products 4.0 1.8

Tree planting 3.0 —

Fire hazard reduction 12.0 18.8

Application of chemicals 4.2 12.5

Road/trail maintenance 4.7 7.7

Wildlife habitat improvement 4.1 6.5

Posting land 20.7 —

Private recreation 10.6 —

Public recreation 2.3 —

Insect/disease control — 3.0

Control of invasive plants — 29.0

— = Data not available.

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern 

Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and individuals who own rangeland and woodland 

in western Texas, 2007. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 

Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

Table 12—Preferred methods for receiving management advice about forest land or rangeland and 

woodland in the Mid-South as reported by families who ranked each method as very useful (1) or 

useful (2) on a seven-point Likert scalea,b

Preferred learning method Forest land Rangeland and woodland

- - - - - - percent of responding landowners - - - - - - 

Publications, books, or pamphlets 9.2 14.1

Newsletters, magazines, or newspapers 9.5 14.5

Internet/Web 6.5 9.1

Conferences, workshops, or video conferences 3.7 6.3

Video tapes for home viewing 5.5 9.9

Television or radio programs 5.4 9.5

Visits to other woodland ownerships or field trip 6.4 10.5

Talking with a natural resource professional 11.0 10.9

Talking with other woodland owners 9.2 12.5

Talking with a logging contractor 4.7 —

Membership in a landowner organization 1.6 —

Visits to demonstration areas 3.5 5.4

— = Data not available.

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern 

Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and individuals who own rangeland and woodland 

in western Texas, 2007. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 

Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.
38 chapter 3 | The Human Footprint

forest land owners. Slightly more than 10 percent have high 

school degrees (or did not finish the 12th grade) compared to 

30 percent of forest land owners.

One might debate whether the higher levels of education for 

rangeland and woodland owners correlates with ownership 

of larger tracts; after all, the ability to acquire or maintain 

larger properties may require more income, which is often 

associated with higher education. One might also speculate 

that landowners with higher levels of education might 

recognize the value of managing their lands, be open to more 

intensive management, and more aggressively seek sources 

of information about how to manage their land.

Parcelization

The Southern Forest Futures Project did not show a 

compelling trend in tract size over time for the Mid-South as 

a whole, because the survey data upon which that analysis 

was based was essentially from one sample for three of its 

four sections—the Cross Timbers, High Plains, and West 

Texas Basin and Range. Future repeated samples will be 

useful in estimating ownership trends for forests, rangeland, 

and pastureland. In the absence of such trend information, 

anecdotal observations from estate tax law, market trends, 

and land sales suggest that parcel size is becoming smaller 

rather than larger. Transferring land from older to younger 

generations often leads to multiple owners of a given 

property, or subdivision into smaller parcels that are owned 

outright. The transfer of commercial property, such as 

the purchase of forest products industry land by timber 

investment groups, can also lead to parcelization. New 

owners often repackage those parts of the purchased property 

that have a higher, better, or more valuable use as residential 

or recreational property than as timberland or woodland. 

Finally, privately owned timberlands, woodlands, and 

rangelands are often subdivided for industrial or residential 

development as opportunities to do so arise, especially if the 

land is near an urban area or if transgenerational ownership 

forces a land sale to pay estate taxes. Unfortunately, 

anecdotal examples of the reverse process—assembling 

many small tracts into one larger tract—are rare.

Table 13—Percentage of land ownership by education level of the primary 

decisionmaker, for owners of forest land in the Mid-South compared to owners of 

rangeland or woodland in western Texasa,b

Education level Forest land Rangeland and woodland

- - - - - - percent of responding landowners - - - - - - 

<12th grade 8.5 1.5

High school diploma or equivalent 21.5 9.6

Some college 15.7 15.9

Associate’s degree 5.4 4.4

Bachelor’s degree 27.0 40.9

Graduate degree 18.1 23.8

a Butler, B.J. 2010. Family forest owners of the Southern United States. 2006. Unpublished report. On file 

with: Northern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

b Butler, B.J.; Carraway, A.B. 2011. Results from a survey of families and individuals who own rangeland 

and woodland in western Texas, 2007. Unpublished report. On file with: Northern Research Station, Forest 

Inventory and Analysis, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 4 39

Invasive Plants

Miller and others (2013) described the trends in invasive 

plants that are expected across the Southern United 

States. The survey data used to build these trends derived 

from measurements taken by the Forest Inventory and 

Analysis Program of the Forest Service; the limitations of 

those data for western Texas and western Oklahoma have 

been previously described. As a result, invasive species 

distribution and trends were described in detail for the 

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section, but were not available for 

the Cross Timbers, High Plains, and West Texas Basin and 

Range sections.

This is not to say that invasive plants are less of an issue in 

central and western Oklahoma and Texas than they are in 

the rest of the South, because they are. Detailed sources of 

information about them are available from the Oklahoma 

Invasive Plant Council [http://ok-invasive-plant-council.org/

index.html (Date accessed: November 4, 2013)] and Texas 

Invasives [http://www.texasinvasives.org (Date accessed: 

November 4, 2013)]. In light of the limitations of survey data, 

Miller and others (2013) focused on projecting the adverse 

effects that would occur in eastern Cross Timbers counties if 

invasive plants migrate westward from the Coastal Plain or 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands.

In preparing this report for the Mid-South, the authors 

cross-referenced the list of invasive plants that Miller and 

others (2013) deemed important in the South with the plants 

database of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural 

Resources Conservation Service (2012) and identified 

locations reported in the Cross Timbers, High Plains, and 

West Texas Basin and Range sections. The following are the 

species that emerged from the cross-referencing effort. For 

a more detailed description of these species, see Miller and 

others (2013).

Trees

Tallowtree—Tallowtree, Chinese tallow, or popcorntree 

(Triadica sebifera) is a small tree that forms scattered-to-pure 

stands in wet prairies, low and flat pastures and woodlands, 

recently disturbed sites, and other open areas that have moist 

soils. Planted in urban areas as an ornamental, its seeds 

are consumed and disseminated by birds. Already a major 

problem in western Coastal Plain areas that are adjacent to 

the Mid-South, tallowtree is established in nearly a dozen 

Texas counties bordering the eastern Texas piney woods in 

the Cross Timbers, and also occurs in two Texas counties—

Nueces and Cameron—along the Gulf of Mexico (USDA 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012). Increases 

in both range and severity of tallowtree have been predicted 

with a warming climate; however, Miller and others (2013) 

concluded that its western limits in Texas appear to have 

been reached, although some encroachment southward along 

the Gulf of Mexico may be locally important.

Tree-of-heaven—Tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) 

occurs mostly along forest roads. From there, it can spread 

into recently harvested or disturbed sites, where it is 

exceptionally competitive with native species. It has a very 

distinctive and unpleasant odor when leaves are rubbed or 

when twigs and branches are cut. Seeds from this species are 

wind-disseminated, but the tree also spreads by root sprouts. 

Nevertheless, it is only of minor concern for the Mid-South 

(USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012).

Chinaberrytree—Chinaberrytree (Melia azedarach) is a 

traditional widely escaped ornamental that was introduced 

from Asia in the early 1800s and is now the third most 

abundant invasive tree in the South (Miller and others 

2013). It occurs in a dozen counties in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands and in >20 counties across the Cross Timbers 

and High Plains, especially in south-central Texas (USDA 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012). Miller 

and others (2013) forecasted an additional 28 percent of 

occupation by 2060.

Mimosa—Mimosa or silktree (Albizia julibrissin) is a 

small tree imported into the South from central Asia. 

Widely planted as an ornamental across the South because 

of its pink or white flowers that bloom grandly through the 

growing season, mimosa reproduces by abundant seeds and 

root sprouts. It is widely distributed in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands, but also occurs west of the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands in Oklahoma and in a dozen Texas counties in 

the Cross Timbers (USDA Natural Resources Conservation 

Chapter 4.

Biological Threats
40 chapter 4 | Biological Threats

Service 2012). Miller and others (2013) forecasted a 

22-percent increase over the next 50 years under current 

climate.

Brazilian peppertree—Brazilian peppertree (Schinus 

terebinthifolius) is a subtropical species from South America, 

brought to the United States in the 1800s. It is a member of 

the Anacardiaceae family, along with cashew, poison ivy, 

and poison oak; some people experience allergic dermatitis 

similar to the effects of contact with poison ivy and poison 

oak. The berries of Brazilian peppertree are widely dispersed 

by birds and mammals; the tree can completely replace 

native vegetation with its tangled infestations (Miller and 

others 2013). It is well established in Florida, has been 

reported in three coastal counties in southern Texas (USDA 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012), and has the 

potential to seriously threaten other native ecosystems in the 

Mid-South.

Paulownia—Paulownia or princesstree (Paulownia 

tomentosa) is a native of China. It was brought to the United 

States via Europe as an ornamental in the mid-1800s, became 

naturalized in the South by the late 1800s (Miller and others 

2013), and is still a popular ornamental. Producing abundant 

seed that is dispersed long distances by the wind, it can be 

found occasionally in upland hardwood stands of the OzarkOuachita Highlands. However it is not common farther west 

and is therefore only a minimal threat in the Mid-South.

Shrubs

Invasive privets—In the 19th century, at least eight species 

of invasive privet (Ligustrum spp.) were introduced as 

ornamentals from Asia and Europe; today it is the second 

most abundant invasive plant in the South (Miller and others 

2013). Privets are most frequently found in bottomland 

forests, but have begun to appear in upland forests, 

fencerows, rights-of-way, and special habitats throughout the 

region. In the Mid-South, Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) 

is the most invasive, widely dispersed in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands, but it also occurs west of the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands in Oklahoma and in more than a dozen counties in 

the Cross Timbers (USDA Natural Resources Conservation 

Service 2012).

Invasive roses—Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), Cherokee 

rose (Rosa laevigata), and especially Macartney rose (Rosa 

bracteata) are the most invasive of the nonnative rose species 

in the Mid-South, occurring along forest margins and 

stream banks and spreading into pastures, woodlands, and 

rangelands (Miller and others 2013). Multiflora rose is most 

common in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, but also occurs 

sporadically in northeastern and north-central Oklahoma, 

whereas the other species are of greater concern in the Cross 

Timbers and also have been found in the High Plains (USDA 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012).

Invasive lespedezas—Several species of nonnative nitrogenfixing lespedezas (Lespedeza spp.) were introduced in the 

19th century as food for wildlife, forage for grazing animals, 

and erosion control (Miller and others 2013). Chinese or 

sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata) is the most widely 

distributed; it has already spread westward into the Great 

Plains and is established in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

and Cross Timbers (USDA Natural Resources Conservation 

Service 2012). Unlike most invasive plants, several native 

species (Lespedeza capitata and especially Lespedeza 

virginica) are as widely distributed as the Chinese lespedeza.

Saltcedars—Miller and others (2013) did not include the 

saltcedars (Tamarisk spp.) in their projections, but this Asian 

shrub includes several species that are well established in 

the West Texas Basin and Range section, in northern areas 

of the High Plains section, and in scattered areas of the 

southern High Plains and Cross Timbers sections (USDA 

Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012). A fireadapted, drought-tolerant plant with a deep taproot, saltcedar 

colonizes riparian areas, displacing native species such as 

cottonwood and willow, and adversely affecting arid land 

hydrology and streamflow.

Nandina—Nandina (Nandina domestica), or sacred bamboo, 

was imported to the United States as an ornamental early in 

the 19th century and is still valued for suburban landscaping. 

By the 1960s, the species was recognized as a potential 

invasive in forests and woodlands (Radford and others 1964). 

It is still widely sold and cultured to yield new hybrids, some 

of which are seedless. However, older cultivars, whose seed 

can be bird-disseminated in the wildland-urban interface, 

probably have the highest potential for invasiveness.

Vines

Japanese honeysuckle—Miller and others (2013) described 

Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) as “the most 

occupying forest invasive in the region,” usually coexisting 

with both native and invasive plants but also capable of 

blocking the establishment of native plants in a wide range 

of forests over a wide range of sites. Brought to the United 

States in the 1800s, it quickly became a very popular plant 

for homestead beautification, soil stabilization, and wildlife 

food plots. It occurs in nearly every Arkansas county and is 

scattered throughout the Cross Timbers of Oklahoma and 

Texas.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 4 41

Kudzu—Arguably the poster child for invasive plants, 

kudzu (Pueraria montana) conjures mental images from 

the Coastal Plain and Mississippi Delta of locations where 

the plant has completely covered forest openings, old sheds, 

telephone poles, and tree snags. A nitrogen-fixing woody 

vine, kudzu was originally brought to the United States from 

China with the (largely erroneous) expectation that it would 

control erosion and serve as forage for livestock. In the 

Mid-South, it occurs in most counties in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands, but less extensively than in Coastal Plain sites, 

and is scattered in a few counties of the Cross Timbers 

(USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012).

Invasive wisterias—Chinese (Wisteria sinensis) and 

Japanese wisterias (Wisteria floribunda) are woody vines 

often associated with old home sites that are now abandoned 

and reclaimed by forests. They are climbing, twining, and 

trailing woody vines. Like kudzu, they are nitrogen-fixing 

members of the legume family and can be found sporadically 

in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands and the Cross Timbers 

(USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012).

Japanese climbing fern—Japanese climbing fern 

(Lygodium japonicum) is rapidly becoming one of the most 

common invasive plants in Coastal Plain areas along the 

Gulf of Mexico. It is a climbing and twining, perennial fern 

that grows to 90 feet, often forming mats of shrub- and 

tree-covering infestations that erode plant diversity and that 

have no known value to wildlife. In addition to colonizing 

by rhizomes, Japanese climbing fern also spreads rapidly by 

wind-dispersed spores. It is predicted to occupy >500,000 

acres of southern forests by 2060 (Miller and others 2013). 

Northward spread from the Coastal Plain is likely with 

warming trends.

Grasses

Tall fescue—Tall fescue (Schedonorus phoenix) is an 

important forage crop for cattle and sheep that can be an 

aggressive invasive in other situations. In addition to its 

value for forage, it is also an important species in managed 

landscapes for soil stabilization and reclamation of disturbed 

sites. The species tends to out-compete native grasses, forming 

extensive monocultures that are generally poor habitat for 

wildlife (Miller and others 2013). Tall fescue occurs in 

scattered counties across the eastern half of the Mid-South 

(USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service 2012).

Cogongrass—Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica), a native 

of Japan introduced early in the 20th century, is among the 

most aggressive invasive grasses as well as the most difficult 

to control. Because cogongrass is considered to be one of the 

“world’s worst 10 weeds” (Holm and others 1977), Federaland State-funded control programs have been underway 

in all infested States; the strategy is to stop the spread by 

eradicating outliers and to treat the advancing fronts and 

selected epicenter infestations along the Gulf of Mexico 

(Miller and others 2013). Cogongrass is disseminated by 

windblown seed and by rhizomes, which can be transported 

in mud on logging equipment—thus diminishing prospects 

for long-term control. Cogongrass has been reported—and 

reported to have been eradicated—in Tyler County of 

southeastern Texas,4 but vigilance by State forestry and 

highway employees in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas 

will be needed to find and eradicate this highly aggressive 

species.

King’s Ranch (KR) bluestem—Miller and others (2013) 

did not include KR Bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum var. 

songarica) in their analysis, but this Old World bluestem 

grass was once widely planted by ranchers for forage and by 

highway departments for erosion control. If not controlled, it 

disrupts native arid grassland ecosystems, crowds out native 

plants, and reduces native species diversity. It is now widely 

established across central and southern Texas, and is difficult 

to control (Gabbard and Fowler 2007).

Implications

This description of invasive species in the Mid-South builds 

on forest survey data (Miller and others 2013), and as such 

is best interpreted as limited to the invasives whose ranges 

are expected to expand into the Mid-South from Coastal 

Plain sites to the east. Several hundred other invasives, both 

nonnative and native, are expanding in the Cross Timbers, 

High Plains, and West Texas Basin and Range sections; 

although they are beyond the scope of this report, they could 

very well be far more important under the conditions that are 

likely to occur in the future: increased urban development, 

loss of forest and woodland area, and changing weather and 

climate. Fortunately, extension offices and agencies in Texas 

and Oklahoma have aggressive efforts underway to help 

landowners identify and manage invasive species.

Regardless of whether the species were reported by Miller 

and others (2013) or by Oklahoma and Texas agencies, 

invasive plants are an active threat that will require adaptive 

management and suppression across ownerships. Not all will 

have the same effect on stand development and regeneration 

dynamics of forest and woodlands. Active management to 

control these invasive species is the only proactive option in 

most situations. Failure to act would undoubtedly result in 

significant loss of plant species diversity and productivity 

over time.

4 Billings, R.F. 2010. Hello cogongrass: goodbye Texas forests and 

grasslands! Texas Forestry. August: 8-10. http://texasinvasives.org/

resources/publications/HelloCogongrass.pdf. [Date accessed: 

October 2, 2012].
42 chapter 4 | Biological Threats

Insect and Disease Pests

Duerr and Mistretta (2013) described trends in insect 

infestations and diseases that are expected across the forests 

of the Southern United States. They observed that the 

number of significant pests has risen from 21 to 30 species 

over the past decade, and that some of the recently 

introduced pests have the potential to cause catastrophic 

losses. Existing insect and disease pests are likely to continue 

to affect southern forests at rates similar to historical activity, 

and there will certainly be previously undocumented pests 

to deal with in the future. However, scientific literature and 

expert opinion are not at all clear as to what to expect under 

a changing climate. Table 14 lists the 30 high priority pests 

in the South (Duerr and Mistretta 2013) and projects the 

likelihood of each becoming an issue in the four sections of 

the Mid-South.

Insect Pests of Softwoods

Southern pine beetle—The southern pine beetle 

(Dendroctonus frontalis) has the well deserved reputation 

of being the most damaging insect in southern pine forests. 

The fact that the Ouachita-Ozark Highlands section has not 

experienced an outbreak in more than a decade is historically 

unusual. Nevertheless, continued vigilance and periodic 

thinning treatments will be needed to ensure that the hazard 

remains low (Guldin 2011).

Secondary pine bark beetles—Unlike southern pine 

beetles, secondary bark beetles, especially the three 

species of engraver beetles—the six-spined engraver (Ips 

calligraphus), the southern pine engraver (Ips grandicollis), 

and the small southern pine engraver (Ips avulsus)—and 

the black turpentine beetle (Dendroctonus terebrans), 

have become more prominent in the past decade across 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands and the scattered pines of 

the Cross Timbers. Whether these patterns reflect normal 

activity associated with increasingly mature stands or an 

epidemiological response to changing climate is unclear, but 

the concern is that climate may be a factor. Again, vigilant 

observation is needed along with additional research to 

quantify the hazard and risk of bark beetle activity.

Nantucket pine tip moth—The Nantucket pine tip 

moth (Rhyacionia frustrana) and other species of pine 

reproduction weevils are primarily pests of planted pines, 

where they can reduce the return on landowner investments 

in timber production. As such, they could be a concern 

in shortleaf and loblolly pine plantation management in 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. However, these pests are 

currently a larger problem elsewhere in the South, especially 

in plantations on the Coastal Plain.

Sirex wood wasp—As no major outbreak of Sirex wood wasp 

(Sirex noctilio) has yet occurred in North America, concern 

about this introduced pest in southern pines largely stems from 

the substantial impact it has had in North American pines that 

were planted in Australia, South Africa, and South America 

(Carnegie and others 2006). Because this perceived hazard 

is limited to areas stocked with pine, the only vulnerability 

in the Mid-South would be in forests dominated by native 

shortleaf and planted loblolly in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

section, in pine stands scattered in the Cross Timbers section, 

and possibly in pinyon and ponderosa pine stands in the West 

Texas Basin and Range section.

Texas leafcutting ant—This species of ant (Atta texana) 

will continue to be an issue in the central Cross Timbers 

and northern High Plains—not so much as a threat to young 

pine plantations as it is in the Texas Coastal Plain, but 

rather as a threat to woodland and agricultural plants. It is 

constrained by a requirement for well-drained, deep sandy 

soils. The potential effects of changing climate are somewhat 

uncertain; a shorter dormant season might aggravate the 

damage it causes to hosts, but increased drought incidence 

might adversely affect its foraging activity. This species is 

likely to remain a local concern rather than a concern for the 

Mid-South as a whole.

Insect Pests of Hardwoods

In contrast to softwoods, the risk of damage from nonnative 

insect species is much higher in hardwoods, threatening not 

only forest and woodland hardwoods but also hardwoods in 

urban settings. Two introduced Asian species in particular, 

the Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) and 

the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), have been very 

destructive in Northern States. Both are wood-boring insects 

whose larvae live under the bark, girdling the tree with their 

feeding activity.

Asian longhorned beetle—This wood borer, which has a 

wide range of hosts but prefers trees in the maple family, 

has been a serious pest especially for cities in the northern 

part of the continent. Although it extends its range slowly, 

the movement of infested firewood can accelerate its 

distribution. Control efforts include chipping and burning 

infested trees and enforcing quarantines against the 

movement of infested wood products. In all likelihood, the 

Mid-South will not experience wide damage from this pest 

in the next few decades.

Emerald ash borer—A tiny green jewel-like beetle, the 

emerald ash borer threatens all U.S. ash species regardless of 

their size and vigor. Estimates are that 50 million ash trees 

have already been lost in both urban and forested conditions. 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 4 43

Table 14—Insect and disease pests of importance across the southern region of 

the United States and the likelihood they will become an issue in each of the four 

sections of the Mid-South subregion

Pest

Sections of the U.S. Mid-South

OzarkOuachita

Highlands 

Cross

Timbers

High

Plains

West Texas

Basin 

and Range 

Insect pests of conifers

Balsam woolly adelgid – – – –

Hemlock woolly adelgid – – – –

Nantucket pine tip moth Y – – –

Secondary bark beetles Y Y Y Y

Pine reproduction weevils Y – – –

Sirex woodwasp Y – – –

Southern pine beetle Y – – –

Texas leafcutting ant – Y Y –

Insect pests of hardwoods

Asian longhorned beetle Y Y Y Y

Baldcypress leafroller – – – –

Emerald ash borer Y Y Y –

Forest tent caterpillar Y Y Y –

Gypsy moth Y Y Y –

Hardwood borers Y Y – –

Soapberry borer Y Y Y Y

Diseases of conifers

Annosum root disease – – – –

Brown spot needle disease – – – –

Fusiform rust – – – –

Littleleaf disease – – – –

Loblolly pine decline – – – –

Diseases of hardwoods

Beech bark disease – – – –

Butternut canker Y – – –

Chestnut blight Y – – –

Dogwood anthracnose Y Y – –

Dutch elm disease Y Y Y –

Laurel wilt – – – –

Oak decline Y Y Y –

Oak wilt Y Y Y –

Sudden oak death Y Y Y –

Thousand cankers disease Y Y Y Y

Y = the species is likely to become a threat for in the section; “–” indicates that the species is either not 

found or unlikely to be a threat in the section.

Source: Duerr and Mistretta (2013).
44 chapter 4 | Biological Threats

Given what is known about the biology of this species, the 

Mid-South will probably lose millions of ash trees over the 

next 50 years (Duerr and Mistretta 2013).

Soapberry borer—Similar to the emerald ash borer in 

appearance, the soapberry borer (Agrilus prionurus) is 

a Mexican import that has been the cause of widespread 

mortality of soapberry in the Cross Timbers and High 

Plains of Texas. Although soapberry borer has not been 

found outside Texas, this damaging insect has the potential 

to decimate soapberry trees throughout their natural 

range, which extends into the Missouri Ozarks and farther 

westward into Arizona.

Gypsy moth—The gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar), the 

notorious nonnative defoliator of oak-dominated forests 

in the Northeastern United States, is slowly advancing to 

the South. Although still centered in the North Central 

States, this voracious species could wreak havoc on the 

oak forests of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands and on oak 

woodlands in Oklahoma and Texas. At its current rate of 

natural spread, it will probably require several decades to 

become established in the Mid-South. However, isolated 

long-distance dispersal events, such as transport of egg 

masses on firewood or recreational vehicles, have been 

known to occur; the response to any detected isolated 

infestations in the Mid-South would be to attempt 

eradication.

Native hardwood borers and tent caterpillar species—

These species will continue to be locally important. 

Outbreaks are often controlled by the natural predators 

that have evolved with them over time, but populations 

occasionally expand to the point of substantial ecological 

and economic impact. This happened a decade ago in 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, when populations of 

the native red oak borer (Enaphalodes rufulus) reached 

epidemic status, contributing to an oak decline complex that 

affected >340,000 acres. But just as quickly, red oak borer 

populations returned to their previous levels. Nevertheless, 

similar unexpected outbreaks could be expected to occur 

under changing climate.

Disease Pests

Duerr and Mistretta (2013) list several important diseases 

of southern softwoods, many of which are associated with 

intensive pine plantation management or are the result of 

choosing unfavorable sites or conditions for planting. The 

etiology of these diseases, combined with available host 

species and site conditions, would not be favorable for large 

outbreaks in the softwood forests of the Mid-South. In 

contrast, a number of hardwood diseases—most nonnative 

in origin, but not all—have the potential to become serious 

issues in the Mid-South.

Diseases of the walnut family—Butternut canker 

(Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum) is a stem canker 

fungus that is killing butternut (Juglans cinerea) trees 

throughout the Appalachians from Alabama to Virginia, and 

westward into Kentucky and Tennessee. Because butternut 

trees that are infected do not appear to have any genetic 

resistance to the disease, experts conclude that it is probably 

an introduced disease of unknown origin. Butternuts in the 

Ozark Mountains will certainly be a victim of this fungus.

A new pest complex called thousand cankers disease, 

which is caused by a fungus (Geosmithia morbida) and 

vectored from infected to healthy trees by the walnut twig 

beetle (Pityophthorus juglandis), has the potential to cause 

widespread mortality in several species of walnut, including 

the highly prized black walnut (Juglans nigra) found across 

the Eastern United States. Walnut species across the MidSouth may well be susceptible to this fungus.

Chestnut blight—Chestnut blight (Cryphonectria 

parasitica) virtually annihilated mature American chestnut 

(Castanea dentata) from eastern forests early in the 20th

century. The only survivors are sprouts from rootstocks, 

which ultimately succumb at an early age. An ambitious 

restoration program that uses advanced genetics and 

breeding techniques is underway to restore the species in 

the field (Rhoads and others 2009), but widespread success 

is decades away. American chestnut is not native west of 

the Mississippi, but its close relative—Ozark chinkapin 

(Castanea pumila)—is scattered through the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands. Like chestnut, the chinkapin is susceptible to 

the blight, but persists through resprouting. Although this 

vegetative propagation could survive a changing climate, the 

prospects for long-term recovery of Ozark chinkapin in the 

Mid-South are bleak for the foreseeable future.

Dogwood anthracnose—A disease of flowering dogwood 

(Cornus florida) called dogwood anthracnose is caused by 

a nonnative fungus (Discula destructiva), and has inflicted 

substantial mortality in this small but highly valued tree 

species across the Appalachian Mountains. Flowering 

dogwood is also common in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

and in the northern Cross Timbers. However, the current 

distribution maps for dogwood anthracnose suggest that the 

spread of the fungus may be limited by high temperatures, 

which means it will likely not be an important disease west 

of the Mississippi.

Dutch elm disease—The infamous Dutch elm disease, 

caused by two related species of fungi and vectored by one 

of two elm bark beetle species, can attack all elm species 

including two commonly found in the Mid-South, winged 

elm and cedar elm. But the disease is far less destructive in 

the Mid-South, especially in Oklahoma and Texas, than in 

forests farther northeast.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 4 45

Laurel wilt—Red-bay (Persea borbonia) populations 

along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas are at considerable risk 

from a disease called laurel wilt, caused by an introduced 

fungus (Raffaelea lauricola) transmitted by an introduced 

ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus). This disease has 

decimated populations of red-bay across the Atlantic 

Coastal Plain and is headed west. Projections based on the 

current rate of spread are that the disease will reach Texas 

by 2040 if not sooner, and that the loss of the Texas red-bay 

populations along the coast is likely. The disease could 

also cause substantial mortality of sassafras (Sassafras 

albidum) throughout the Mid-South, although the impacts 

on sassafras populations are usually less severe than the 

impacts on red-bay.

Oak diseases—Finally, the oak forests of the Mid-South are 

at varying risk from three diseases. Two of these, oak decline 

and oak wilt, are currently active; and the third, sudden oak 

death, is currently only a potential threat, although it could 

eventually become quite destructive.

A significant problem in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands over 

the past several decades, oak decline is a term that describes 

a variety of tree stressors that include drought, insect pests, 

poor site conditions, and declining vigor associated with old 

age. Decline is manifested as a gradual loss of the crown 

until the leaves that remain can no longer support the tree. If 

changing climate increases drought as predicted, oak decline 

events may become more pronounced.

Oak wilt, a vascular disease caused by a fungus (Ceratocystis 

fagacearum) similar to Dutch elm disease, occurs in 

21 Eastern States. All oaks are susceptible to varying 

degrees; red oaks are most susceptible, white oaks least 

susceptible, and the susceptibility of live oak falls between 

red and white oaks. Infection causes trees to wilt and 

eventually succumb. The disease has become quite active in 

central Texas, and is likely to persist over time.

Finally, a rather ominous disease in oaks called sudden oak 

death, caused by a fungus (Phytophthora ramorum), is a 

canker disease that currently has a limited range in oaks on 

the West Coast. However, it could become quite severe if it 

becomes established in eastern forests.

Implications

Whether discussing insect or disease pests or their 

impacts on pines or hardwoods, the future is clouded with 

uncertainty. Scientists do not know how changing climate 

will affect insect and disease pests, or which pests will 

become scourges of forests and woodlands in 50 years. 

Current trends suggest that all of the ash species, soapberry, 

and red-bay could be lost, that the threat is considerable 

for walnut and butternut, and that oaks face decline, 

wilt, defoliators, and canker disease. The best advice for 

landowners and the professional foresters who advise them 

is to maintain healthy forests and woodlands full of vigorous 

trees and shrubs that are well adapted to the sites they 

occupy. But even those measures may not stop insect and 

disease pests, either those already known or those that have 

not yet been introduced.

Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 47

Forest Conditions

This report summarizes forest survey data for the counties 

included in each of the sections in the Mid-South (Ridley 

2012). Although data from Arkansas were prepared using 

inventory year 2011 (field data collected from 2007 to 2011), 

and data from Oklahoma and Texas were prepared using 

inventory year 2010 (field data collected from 2008 to 2010), 

all are lumped together and identified as 2011.

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands

Forests cover slightly >14.92 million acres (61.2 percent) of 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands in Arkansas and Oklahoma. 

Of that, 96 percent is considered productive forest land 

(producing or capable of producing at least 20 cubic feet of 

commercial-grade wood per acre per year) and the balance is 

classified as unproductive woodland.

The average acre in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands has a 

density of 568 trees per acre (24 percent of which are 

>5 inches d.b.h.) and basal area of 86 square feet per acre 

(81 percent of which is in trees >5 inches d.b.h.). Stands are 

relatively mature: 50.8 percent of forest land area supports 

large-diameter trees, 32.1 percent supports medium-diameter 

trees, 16.6 percent supports small-diameter trees, and 

0.4 percent is unstocked. The average stand has a volume 

of 1,299 cubic feet per acre, average annual growth of 

28.1 cubic feet per acre, aboveground biomass (dry weight) 

of 37.1 tons per acre, and aboveground weight of carbon of 

18.6 tons per acre. Pine-dominated forest types occur on 

21.8 percent of forest land; of those, 38.2 percent are 

plantation stands, which reflects the past importance of the 

timber industry and of intensive forest practices in the OzarkOuachita Highlands. Because of its favorable climate, this 

section supports the most productive sites of the four MidSouth sections; 57.0 percent of its forest land area is capable 

of growing >50 cubic feet per acre annually, and 95.7 percent 

is capable of growing >20 cubic feet per acre annually.

Cross Timbers

Forests cover 16.75 million acres (27.3 percent) of the Cross 

Timbers land area in Oklahoma and Texas. Of that, 

40.9 percent is considered productive forest land (producing 

>20 cubic feet of commercial-grade wood per acre annually), 

and the balance is classified as unproductive or nonforest but 

would probably be more accurately classified as woodland.

The average acre in the Cross Timbers has density of 

389 trees per acre (25 percent of which are >5 inches d.b.h.) 

and basal area of 61.6 square feet per acre (81 percent of 

which are in trees >5 inches d.b.h.). Forest land area is fairly 

equally divided by tree size: 37.2 percent supports largediameter trees, 32.0 percent supports medium-diameter trees, 

27.5 percent of supports small-diameter trees, and 3.3 percent 

is unstocked. The average stand has a volume of 691 cubic 

feet per acre, average annual growth of 4.6 cubic feet per 

acre, aboveground biomass (dry weight) of 20.45 tons per 

acre, and aboveground weight of carbon of 10.2 tons per acre. 

Pine-dominated forest types are found on only 9 percent 

of forest land in the section; of those, only 5.8 percent 

are planted, suggesting that active timber management 

is not common or productive in the Cross Timbers. Only 

16.9 percent of the forest land area is capable of growing 

>50 cubic feet per acre annually, whereas 73.0 percent is 

classified as unproductive, growing <20 cubic feet per acre.

High Plains

Forests and woodlands cover slightly >34.5 million acres, 

almost exactly a third of the land area, of the High Plains 

section in Oklahoma and Texas. Of that, >99 percent is 

classified as unproductive as commercial timberland, growing 

<20 cubic feet of commercial-grade wood per acre annually.

The average acre of forest land in the High Plains has density 

of 239 trees per acre (27.3 percent of which are >5 inches 

d.b.h.) and basal area of 37.3 square feet per acre (81 percent 

of which are in trees >5 inches d.b.h.). Less than a third 

(31.3 percent) of forest land area is in large-diameter trees, 

21.0 percent is in medium-diameter trees, 40.1 percent is in 

small-diameter trees, and 7.2 percent of forest land area is 

unstocked. The average stand has volume of 256 cubic feet 

per acre, aboveground biomass (dry weight) of 7.6 tons per 

acre, and aboveground weight of carbon of 3.8 tons per acre. 

Nearly a fifth (19.7 percent) of forest land is dominated by 

pines, all of natural origin in the pinyon-juniper forest type. 

Chapter 5.

 Effects of Changes on Forests 

and their Values
48 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Less than 1 percent of the forest land area in the High Plains 

is capable of growing >20 cubic feet per acre annually; 

99.2 percent is classified as unproductive (growing <20 cubic 

feet per acre annually).

West Texas Basin and Range

Forest land covers slightly >7.92 million acres, or slightly 

<30 percent, of the land area in the West Texas Basin and 

Range section. Of that, <1 percent is considered productive 

forest land (capable of producing >20 cubic feet of 

commercial-grade wood per acre annually); the remaining 

99 percent is classified as unproductive.

The average acre of forest land in the West Texas Basin and 

Range section has density of 151 trees per acre (23.8 percent 

of which are >5 inches d.b.h.) and basal area of 18.1 square 

feet per acre (74.4 percent of which are in trees >5 inches 

d.b.h.). About an eighth (12.3 percent) of forest land area is 

in large-diameter trees, 14.9 percent is in medium-diameter 

trees, 66.3 percent is in small-diameter trees, and 6.5 percent 

of forest land area is unstocked. The average stand has 

volume of 69.4 cubic feet per acre, aboveground biomass 

(dry weight) of 2.1 tons per acre, and aboveground weight 

of carbon of slightly >1 ton per acre. Nearly a third (31.8 

percent) of forest land in the section is dominated by pines, 

all of natural origin in the pinyon-juniper forest type. Only 

0.1 percent of the forest land area in the West Texas Basin 

and Range is capable of growing >20 cubic feet per acre 

annually; 99.9 percent is classified as unproductive (growing 

<20 cubic feet per acre annually).

Wildlife and Forest Communities

Trani Griep and Collins (2013) described the wildlife species 

and forest communities that inhabit or occupy the 13 States 

included in the Southern Forest Futures Project. The major 

species groups that Trani Griep and Collins (2013) analyzed 

were birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and vascular 

plants. Their analysis included species that are native to the 

Mid-South, either living in forests or in other habitats, with 

species locations queried and tallied at the county level from 

the NatureServe (2011) database.

The Mid-South featured prominently because of its size and 

the diversity of its landscapes, which stretch from the Ozarks 

to the Guadalupes, and because it figures prominently in the 

analyses of three key issues.

First, the Mid-South is an unusually diverse landscape, 

supporting 115 ecosystems (NatureServe 2010). It 

also supports 856 native terrestrial vertebrate species 

(NatureServe 2011)—more than anywhere else in the South 

(fig. 9). This richness stems from the confluence of species 

distributions, with many species that are centered in eastern 

forests, western rangelands and woodlands, or the Mexican 

deserts extending their ranges into the Mid-South. Added to 

this mix of species is the influence of the centers of native 

species diversity in the Big Bend National Park and in the 

counties along the Gulf of Mexico.

Secondly, the key stressors of wildlife populations and their 

associated habitats will likely be urban development, forest 

and woodland loss, and climate change. Management will 

not likely be effective in changing these stressors, but will 

likely invest in considerable effort to respond to them.

Finally, species vary in their response to stressors, and 

those most at risk will likely be those with small geographic 

ranges, patchy distributions, more demanding resource 

needs, more specialized requirements for reproduction (such 

as limited seed production or dispersal capabilities), marginal 

physiological tolerance for the conditions they occupy, and 

low genetic diversity.

Current Trends

Mammals—Trani Griep and Collins (2013) reported that 

terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats in the Mid-South 

are home to 148 mammal species (fig. 10), with diversity 

highest for rodents (68 species), bats (38 species), and 

carnivores (22 species). Especially important for providing 

habitat are the High Plains section with 105 species and the 

West Texas Basin and Range section with 88 species. Together, 

the four Mid-South sections support a high level of richness 

for rodents ranging from 57 species in the High Plains to 

27 species in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands (table 15). 

Bat richness is highest in the High Plains (25 species) and 

West Texas Basin and Range sections (24 species). Carnivore 

richness is highest in the High Plains and Cross Timbers; 

unique carnivores in these two sections include the ocelot 

(Leopardus pardalis), western spotted skunk (Spilogale 

gracilis), and white-nosed coati (Nasua narica).

Birds—The Mid-South supports 469 bird species, including 

241 species of perching birds and 28 species of raptors 

(Trani Griep and Collins 2013). This impressive diversity 

is due to its size, to the heterogeneity of its habitats, and 

especially to the wetlands and coastlines along the Gulf 

of Mexico (fig. 11). The pattern across the southernmost 

portions of eastern Texas includes species typical of Latin 

America (Stein and others 2000), and diversity is further 

increased by numerous southwestern species that range 

eastward into the West Texas Basin and Range section. 

Of particular prominence is the Southern Gulf, which 

encompasses the portions of the Cross Timbers and High 

Plains that form the Texas eastern coastline. Each of these 

two sections supports habitat for >360 species of birds, 

including more than 35 species of shorebirds and more than 

30 species of waterfowl (table 15).
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 49

Boundaries

Subregions

States

Counties

Number of species

295 – 328

329 – 362

363 – 396

397 – 430

431 – 467

Figure 9—County-level counts of native terrestrial vertebrate species in the 

U.S. Mid-South (Source: NatureServe 2011). 

Boundaries

Subregions

States

Counties

Number of species

27 – 37

38 – 48

49 – 59

60 – 70

71 – 81

Figure 10—County-level counts of all native mammal species in the 

U.S. Mid-South (Source: NatureServe 2011). 

Table 15—Number of vertebrate species in the four sections of the U.S. 

Mid-South 

Species

Sections of the U.S. Mid-South

OzarkOuachita

Highlands

Cross

Timbers

High

Plains

West Texas

Basin 

and Range

Mammals

Bats 16 16 25 24

Carnivores 12 17 20 14

Other mammals 14 18 16 15

Rodents 27 41 57 46

Birds

Other birds 49 86 92 66

Perching birds 143 184 208 171

Raptors 15 21 28 21

Shorebirds 20 37 38 22

Wading birds 12 17 17 10

Waterfowl 25 34 31 25

Reptiles

Crocodiliansa 1 0 0 0

Lizards 13 25 38 35

Snakes 38 58 64 43

Turtles 17 24 21 10

Amphibians

Frogs and toads 29 38 37 19

Salamanders 29 26 18 4

a Although NatureServe does not report crocodilians in the Texas Cross Timbers and High 

Plains, which for purposes of this report includes the Texas counties on the Gulf of Mexico, 

Elsey and Aldrich (2009) and others have reported that the American alligator (Alligator 

mississippiensis) has been documented in Texas.

Source: NatureServe (2011).
50 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Reptiles—The Mid-South supports 148 species of reptiles, 

including 74 species of snakes and 45 species of lizards 

(Trani Griep and Collins 2013). This diversity reflects its 

profoundly different habitats from east to west (fig. 12), 

as well as its location at the crossroads of several distinct 

reptilian species (Stein and others 2000). Snake and lizard 

richness is highest in the three western sections of the MidSouth (table 15), reflecting the availability of arid habitats. 

Similarly, two sections support ≥20 turtle species—the Cross 

Timbers with 24 and the High Plains with 21. The American 

alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) occurs only rarely in the 

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands and mostly along its borders—the 

upper western Coastal Plain to the south and the Mississippi 

Delta to the east. Although NatureServe (2011) does not list 

the alligators in either the Cross Timbers or High Plains, they 

have been documented along the Gulf of Mexico in southern 

Texas (Elsey and Aldrich 2009).

Amphibians—The Mid-South supports 91 species of 

amphibians (fig. 13), including 46 species of frogs and toads 

and 45 species of salamanders (Trani Griep and Collins 

2013). The Cross Timbers (38 species) and High Plains 

(37 species) each supports >35 species of frogs and toads, 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section supports 

29 salamander species, and the Cross Timbers section 

supports 26 salamander species (table 15). In the OzarkOuachita Highlands, a handful of the woodland salamander 

species are very locally distributed on north-facing 

moderately moist hillsides; they sometimes occur within 

75 miles of one another and yet have different species names 

based on the mountain that they occupy—such as the Caddo 

Mountain salamander (Plethodon caddoensis), the Rich 

Mountain salamander (Plethodon ouachitae), the Fourche 

Mountain salamander (Plethodon fourchensis), and the 

Kiamichi Mountain salamander (Plethodon kiamichi).

Effects on Wildlife from Forecasts of Urban 

Growth, Forest Loss, and Climate Change

Among the possible futures outlined in Wear and Greis 

(2013), Trani Griep and Collins (2013) emphasized the effects 

that would occur under Cornerstone B, which predicts the 

biggest loss of forest acreage and the highest level of urban 

growth. In the Mid-South, the two areas of concern are the 

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands and a swath of land from southcentral Texas eastward to the Gulf of Mexico.

Forest loss and urban growth in the Ozark-Ouachita 

Highlands threaten concentrations of plant and animal 

species along the southern border of the section and in the 

northwestern corner of Arkansas. Around Hot Springs and 

Little Rock, AR, urban areas are expected to grow 10 to 

20 percent, with a corresponding loss of forest area. Although 

this area is somewhat protected by its proximity to the Hot 

Springs National Park and the Ouachita National Forest, 

adverse effects are likely to be concentrated on private 

lands that are under development in the wildland-urban 

interface. Plant species at risk, especially on private lands, 

include Kentucky lady’s slipper (Cypripedium kentuckiense) 

reported by Case and others (1998), the clasping twistflower 

(Streptanthus maculatus), and least trillium (Trillium 

pusillum) reported by Timmerman-Erskine and others (2003). 

Boundaries

Subregions

States

Counties

Number of species

27 – 37

38 – 48

49 – 59

60 – 70

71 – 81

Figure 11—County-level counts of all native bird species in the 

U.S. Mid-South (Source: NatureServe 2011). 

Boundaries

Subregions

States

Counties

Number of species

16 – 26

27 – 37

38 – 48

49 – 59

60 – 72

Figure 12—County-level counts of all native reptile species in the 

U.S. Mid-South (Source: NatureServe 2011).
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 51

Trani Griep and Collins (2013) reported that similar rates 

of urban growth and associated loss of forest cover could 

affect species such as the Ozark big-eared bat (Corynorhinus 

townsendii ingens) and Oklahoma salamander (Eurycea 

tynerensis) in the northwestern part of the section.

Similarly, urban development from south-central Texas to the 

Gulf of Mexico could impact many reptiles and birds (Trani 

Griep and Collins 2013). Urban growth and associated loss 

of woodlands in southern Texas between Houston and San 

Antonio could impact a number of reptiles such as Cagle’s 

map turtle (Graptemys caglei) and other turtles. This area 

also lies on the Central Flyway, a band of especially high 

avian richness that occurs along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. 

Finally, if sea levels rise as predicted, coastal birds and other 

species whose ranges are limited to coastal areas would be 

vulnerable.

Species at Risk

The Mid-South supports 28 federally listed (as endangered or 

threatened) species and subspecies of vertebrates (table 16), 

with most occurring in the High Plains and Cross Timbers 

and fewer occurring in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

and the highly diverse Big Bend area of the West Texas 

Basin and Range section. Four species of amphibians are 

federally listed including three salamanders, each of which 

has a highly restricted geographic range and requires 

moist habitats that would be adversely affected by drought 

conditions and urban development. Of the 12 listed bird 

species, 10—including the Eskimo curlew (Numenius 

borealis) (Oberholser 1974) and Bachman’s warbler 

(Vermivora bachmanii), both of which may well be extinct—

are endangered. Nine of these bird species are found in 

the High Plains, and 10 are found in the Cross Timbers, 

especially in the coastal prairies near the Gulf of Mexico. 

Moreover, the entire breeding range of the endangered 

golden-cheeked warbler (Dendroica chrysoparia) lies within 

Mid-South landscapes of Texas. Eight species of mammals 

are federally listed, four bats and four carnivores, but two 

of the carnivores—the mountain lion (Puma concolor) and 

American black bear (Ursus americanus)—are only listed 

because they are similar in appearance to the endangered 

Gulf Coast jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi cacomitli) and 

the Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) of the 

Mississippi Deltaic Plain. Three of the listed bat species are 

in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, and one—the Mexican 

long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis)—migrates from 

Mexico to the West Texas Basin and Range section, where 

populations tend to congregate in the Big Bend National 

Park. Finally, four reptiles are federally listed (table 16); they 

include two sea turtles and a water snake whose habitat is 

restricted to the Concho River.

In addition, 29 species of plants are federally listed as 

endangered or threatened (table 17). Eight are cacti; seven 

occur in the West Texas Basin and Range section, four of 

which primarily or only occur in the Big Bend National 

Park in Brewster County: Nellie’s cory cactus (Escobaria 

minima), Davis’ green pitaya cactus (Echinocereus 

viridiflorus var. davisii), Chisos Mountains hedgehog 

cactus (Echinocereus chisoensis var. chisoensis), and 

Lloyd’s Mariposa cactus (Sclerocactus mariposensis). 

Whether the natural range of the Pima pineapple cactus 

(Coryphantha scheeri var. robustispina) in Arizona 

actually extends into El Paso County (Poole and others 

2007) is unclear.

Federally listed herb species (table 17) are scattered across all 

four sections of the Mid-South. A few—such as the western 

prairie white-fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara), which 

at one time was reported in northeastern Oklahoma—may 

already be extirpated. Finally, the four endangered trees 

and shrubs of the Mid-South all occur along the Rio Grande 

River from the Big Bend National Park to Brownsville.

Implications

The major reasons for concern about the ability to maintain 

existing populations and distributions of plant and animal 

species in the Mid-South are habitat loss, urban development, 

and the likelihood of changing climate. For species with 

limited geographic ranges or those that have specific and 

narrow habitat requirements that may or may not be known, 

monitoring will be important to quantify changes in their 

status, especially if they are federally listed.

Boundaries

Subregions

States

Counties

Number of species

9 – 16

17 – 24

25 – 32

33 – 40

41 – 51

Figure 13—County-level counts of all native amphibian species in the 

U.S. Mid-South (Source: NatureServe 2011). 
52 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Table 16—The terrestrial vertebrate species that are federally listed as threatened or endangered in the four sections of 

the U.S. Mid-South 

Species name Status

Sections of the U.S. Mid-Southa

OzarkOuachita

Highlands

Cross

Timbers

High 

Plains

West Texas

Basin 

and Range

Frogs and toads

Houston toad (Bufo houstonensis) E – X – –

Salamanders

San Marcos salamander (Eurycea nana) T – – X –

Texas blind salamander (Eurycea rathbuni) E – – X –

Barton Springs salamander (Eurycea sosorum) E – – X –

Wading birds

Whooping crane (Grus americana) E – X X –

Raptors

Northern Aplomado falcon (Falco femoralis septentrionalis) E – – X –

Shorebirds

Piping plover (Charadrius melodus) T – X X –

Eskimo curlewb (Numenius borealis) E – X X X

Perching birds

Golden-cheeked warbler (Dendroica chrysoparia) E – X X –

Bachman’s warbler (Vermivora bachmanii) E – X – –

Black-capped vireo (Vireo atricapilla) E – X X X

Other birds

Red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) E X X – –

Least tern (Sternula antillarum) E X X X –

Interior least tern (Sternula antillarum athalassos) E X X X –

Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) T – – X –

Attwater’s greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido attwateri) E X X – –

Bats

Ozark big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii ingens) E X – – –

Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) E – – X –

Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) E X – – –

Gray bat (Myotis grisescens) E X – – –

Carnivores

Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) E – – X –

Mountain lion (Puma concolorc) Sd – X X X

Gulf Coast jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi cacomitli) E – X X –

American black bear (Ursus americanus) Sd X X X X

Reptiles

American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) Sd X – – –

Concho watersnake (Nerodia paucimaculata) T – X X –

Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) T – X X –

Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) E – – X –

a An X indicates that the species is found in the Mid-South section; an “–“ indicates that the species is not found in that section. 

b Oberholser (1974) reported that Eskimo curlew is a spring migrant through most of Texas, but has been on the verge of extinction since 1905. 

Five records document its persistence: two for the Cross Timbers (Cooke County and Nueces County), two for the High Plains (Kendall County and 

Cameron County), and one for West Texas Basin and Range (Pecos County).

c All except coryi.

d Listed as endangered or threatened because of similarity of appearance.

Status: E = Endangered, T = Threatened, and S = Similar.

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (2011).
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 53

Table 17—The vascular plant species that are federally listed as threatened or endangered in the four sections of the 

U.S. Mid-South

Species name and range Status

Sections of the U.S. Mid-South

OzarkOuachita 

Highlands

Cross 

Timbers

High 

Plains

West Texas 

Basin 

and Range

Graminoids

Texas wild wice (Zizania texana) E – – X –

Cacti

Star cactus (Astrophytum asterias) E – – X –

Pima pineapple cactus (Coryphantha scheeri var. robustispina) E – – – X

Chisos Mountains hedgehog cactus 

(Echinocereus chisoensis var. chisoensis) T – X X X

Davis’ green pitaya cactus (Echinocereus viridiflorus var. davisii) E – – – X

Nellie’s cory cactus (Escobaria minima) E – – – X

Sneed pincushion cactus (Escobaria sneedii var. sneedii) E – – – X

Shorthook fishhook cactus 

(Sclerocactus brevihamatus ssp. Tobuschii) E – – X X

Lloyd’s Mariposa cactus (Sclerocactus mariposensis) T – – – X

Herbs

Large-fruit sand-verbena (Abronia macrocarpa) E – X – –

South Texas ragweed (Ambrosia cheiranthifolia) E – X – –

Texas poppy-mallow (Callirhoe scabriuscula) E – – X –

Terlingua Creek cat’s-eye (Cryptantha crassipes) E – – – X

Tiny Tim (Geocarpon minimum) T X – – –

Pecos sunflower (Helianthus paradoxus) T – – – X

Slender rushpea (Hoffmannseggia tenella) E – X – –

Prairie dawn (Hymenoxys texana) E – X – –

Missouri bladderpod (Lesquerella filiformis) T X – – –

Zapata bladderpod (Lesquerella thamnophila) E – – X –

Walker’s manihot (Manihot walkerae) E – – X –

Western prairie white-fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara) T – X – –

Little aguja pondweed (Potamogeton clystocarpus) E – – – X

Harperella (Ptilimnium nodosum) E X – – –

Navasota ladies’-tresses (Spiranthes parksii) E – X – –

Ashy dogweed (Thymophylla tephroleuca) E – – X –

Trees/shrubs

Texas ayenia (Ayenia limitaris) E – – X –

Johnston’s frankenia (Frankenia johnstonii) E – – X –

Hinckley’s oak (Quercus hinckleyi) T – – – X

Texas snowbell (Styrax platanifolius ssp. Texanus) E – – X X

X = the species is found in the section; an “–“ indicates that the species is not found in that section.

Status: E = Endangered and T = Threatened.

Sources: Federal listings by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (2011); location data from NatureServe (2011); species 

names follow the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS database (2012).
54 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Within a larger context, the vulnerability of each of these 

plant and animal species will vary in response to habitat loss, 

urban development, and changing climate. Ensuring their 

survival will require that government agencies take these 

factors into account when developing future conservation 

and management activities.

Water Resources

Lockaby and others (2013) described water trends that are 

expected across the Southern United States over the next 

decades. Changing patterns of precipitation in the Mid-South 

will likely result in more water supply in some areas and less 

in others. However, expected increases in temperature would 

result in more evapotranspiration, which in turn would cause 

lower streamflow and decreased water supply, degraded 

aquatic communities, and diminished water quality. Extreme 

rainfall events increase the severity and frequency of 

flooding, negatively affecting both human safety and welfare 

and the functioning of aquatic communities. And without 

doubt, more people will use more water, and the larger urban 

areas in which they live will adversely affect downstream 

water quantity and quality.

The key findings pertinent to the Mid-South are the adverse 

effects on water yield and water quality from conversion to 

urban uses, a marked increase in water stress, and the threats 

associated with predicted sea level rise.

Water Quantity and Quality

Variation in annual precipitation within a single year or from 

one year to the next is a natural phenomenon controlled 

by large-scale global climate patterns such as the Pacific 

Decadal Oscillation cycle. Prevailing precipitation patterns 

can be predicted under the four Cornerstone Futures with 

some variations across the Mid-South, but the timing and 

spatial distribution of extreme events on an annual basis 

are difficult to predict. Despite this uncertainty, recent 

experience with droughts and low flows in many areas 

of the United States suggests that even small changes in 

drought severity and frequency will have major societal 

impacts, among them a reduction in drinking water supplies 

(Easterling and others 2000, Luce and Holden 2009).

Another major water issue will likely be associated with 

increasing population densities in the Cross Timbers and the 

High Plains, given the ongoing expansion of urban areas into 

the wildland-urban interface in these sections. Generally, 

forest or woodland conversion to agriculture or urban use 

leads to increased variability of streamflow and increased 

discharge, peak flow, and velocity of streams; in addition, 

sediment, water chemistry indices, pathogens, and other 

substances often become more concentrated. These 

effects, in combination with climate variability, can result 

in a decreased supply of water that is available for human 

consumption, degraded stream habitats, poor water quality, 

and increased threats to human health through vectors such 

as mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile virus and other 

human diseases (Lockaby and others 2013).

Whether adverse hydrological effects, such as higher 

peak flows and lower baseflows and hydroperiods that are 

predicted for systems farther east (Amatya and others 2006), 

will occur in the Mid-South is unknown. For example, 

Cuffney and others (2010) reported that the conversion 

of forests to urban uses had adverse effects on benthic 

macroinvertebrates in several southern cities, but that those 

effects were not as severe after similar conversions near 

Dallas, TX, where stream ecosystems on former grasslands 

had already been degraded through recent conversions.

Despite these confounding effects, a watershed that 

is downstream from an urban area in the Mid-South 

will provide a different habitat and support a different 

composition of aquatic (and riparian) communities from 

similar watersheds in undeveloped areas (Lockaby and 

others 2013). A key element of this is attributable to 

impervious cover such as buildings, parking lots, and roads. 

For example, in Houston just to the east of the Cross Timbers 

in southeastern Texas, impervious surfaces were responsible 

for about 20 percent of the increase in peak flows, and 

slightly more than half of the increase in annual runoff since 

the 1970s (Olivera and DeFee 2007). Similarly, in Dallas, 

varying precipitation intensities increased peak flows in 

the White Rock Creek watershed by 20 to 118 percent—the 

result of increased impervious cover (Vicars-Groening and 

Williams 2007). Stream hydrographs of urban watersheds 

have revealed a flashy hydrology with larger pulses and faster 

attainment of peak flows during storm events (Beighley and 

others 2003, Boggs and Sun 2011, Calhoun and others 2003, 

Crim 2007, Schoonover and others 2006). However, arid 

areas have precipitation regimes that produce a naturally 

flashy hydrology, so the effects of urban development may 

not be as dramatic in the Cross Timbers, High Plains, and 

West Texas Basin and Range sections as they are in moister 

environments (Grimm and others 2004).

Water Supply Stress

Lockaby and others (2013) also prepared forecasts of water 

supply stress, calculated using a water supply stress index 

(WaSSI) accounting model analysis (Sun and others 2008). 

This index examines future changes in water stress induced 

by humans, biological factors, and climate. It is defined 

as water demand divided by water supply, both of which 

have been quantified under different climate conditions and 

historical data.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 55

On average, water supply model projections for the South 

predict that water stress resulting from population and 

land use change will increase 10 percent by 2050. However 

effects are forecasted to be more severe in the Mid-South 

under all of the four Cornerstone Futures. Average baseline 

water stress (1995 to 2005) in the South is low (WaSSI 

= 0.16) but high in southern and western Texas (WaSSI 

>0.90) because of naturally low precipitation and high 

evapotranspiration (fig. 14). In the absence of changing 

climate, water stress is expected to increase 10 to 

100 percent across the Cross Timbers especially and in 

parts of southwestern Texas (fig. 15). The highest levels of 

water stress would occur during the growing season when 

ecosystem water use and human water withdrawal for uses 

such as irrigation, domestic purposes, and generation of 

electricity are the highest.

When projected climate change is added to population and 

land use changes, forecasts become more drastic. Water stress 

would increase dramatically relative to historical levels across 

the Mid-South by 2050 (fig. 16), especially under Cornerstones 

A and D. For example, the water supply stress model predicts 

that each of the capital cities in the Mid-South—Oklahoma 

City, Little Rock, and Austin—will experience significant 

increases in water stress (fig. 16). These changes could shift the 

timing of peak water supply stress from late summer to early 

autumn, with effects that would extend across the landscape 

on natural systems, agricultural land, rangelands, woodlands, 

urban areas, and ultimately, the people in the region.

Sea Level Rise

About 5,000 miles of southern coastline are highly 

vulnerable to sea level rise. Climate-induced changes in sea 

level would have significant and direct effects on ecosystem 

processes in forested wetlands (Amatya and others 2006), 

and potentially devastating impacts on human welfare in 

urban and rural areas. Sea levels could rise from 0.4 to 2.0 m 

by the end of the 21st century (Rahmstorf 2007, Soloman and 

others 2009). Along the Gulf of Mexico, about 13,605 square 

miles (about 8.7 million acres) of land are at an elevation of 

<1.5 m (Louisiana and Texas have the most coastal area 

<1.5 m), with an additional 6,430 square miles (about 

4.1 million acres) of coastal land between 1.5 and 3.5 m 

(Hammar-Klose and Thieler 2001, Titus and Richman 2001). 

This would affect all elements of coastal ecosystem ecology, 

management, and development, varying from the loss or 

shrinkage of national seashores and wildlife refuges to 

reductions and erosion of highly valuable developed coastal 

properties.

Figure 14—Water supply stress index (defined by the Water Supply Stress 

Index (WaSSI) and calculated by dividing water supply into water demand) 

in the U.S. Mid-South under baseline, 1995 to 2005, conditions

(Source: Lockaby and others 2013). 

Figure 15—Predicted change in water supply stress (defined by the Water 

Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) and calculated by dividing water supply into 

water demand) by 2050 in the U.S. Mid-South under the combined effects 

of population growth and a shift of land to urban uses (Source: Lockaby 

and others 2013). 

Boundaries

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

Water supply 

stress index

< 0.11 

0.11 – 0.20

0.21 – 0.40

0.41 – 0.60

0.61 – 0.80

0.81 – 1.00

> 1.00

Boundaries

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

Percent change 

in WaSSI 

< -20 

-20 to -10

-10 to 10

10 to 100

100 to 200

> 200
56 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Boundaries

Mid-South subregion

Mid-South sections

Mid-South States

Mid-South counties

Percent change 

in WaSSI 

< -20 

-20 to -10

-10 to 10

10 to 100

100 to 200

> 200

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

Figure 16—Predicted change in water supply stress due to climate change (defined by the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) and calculated 

by dividing water supply into water demand) by 2050 under four climatic scenarios: (A) Cornerstone A, MIROC3.2+A1B, (B): Cornerstone B, 

CSIROMK3.5+A1B, (C): Cornerstone C, CSIROMK2+B2, and (D): Cornerstone D, HadCM3+B2 (Sources: Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change 2007, Lockaby and others 2013). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 57

Implications

Forecasts from the Southern Forest Futures Project predict 

that demand for water will grow with expanding populations, 

warmer temperatures will increase evapotranspiration, and 

water availability in the form of precipitation will decrease. 

Stream flows and water supply are expected to decrease and 

become more variable over the next 50 to 100 years. The 

magnitude of changes in stream flows resulting from climate 

change will likely vary considerably among sections in the 

Mid-South. Some small areas, such as western Texas, would 

experience increases in water supply under some forecasts. 

Other areas, especially Oklahoma and northern Texas, are 

likely to experience decreases regardless of the conditions 

that ultimately occur.

Overall, climate-induced decreases in water supply and 

increased demand from a growing human population will 

likely result in an increase in water supply stress into the 

next century. This is predicted under all four Cornerstone 

Futures, largely because of higher air temperatures that 

cause increases in water loss by evapotranspiration, but also 

because of decreasing precipitation in some areas.

The result might be an unexpected change in the way 

society uses and pays for water. If demand outstrips 

supply, households and business would have to pay more 

for the water that they consume. If society begins to view 

water as an ecosystem service, utilities might begin to pay 

landowners for the surface water that flows from their forests 

and woodlands, and best management practices (BMPs) 

to optimize freshwater flow could become more common. 

Increases in the cost of freshwater aboveground and 

belowground could favor the economics of desalinating water 

from the Gulf of Mexico. And certainly, increases in the cost 

of water could change attitudes and practices for residential, 

commercial, and agricultural consumption.

The Southern Forest Futures Project also predicted a higher 

risk of sea level rise and coastal inundation, as coastal dry 

lands begin to experience episodic inundation and wetlands 

change from episodically inundated (during high tides 

and storms) to permanently inundated. A higher risk of 

sea level rise is predicted for many coastal areas. Thermal 

inertia dictates that once the waters rise, reductions in 

future greenhouse gas emissions would not produce a quick 

reversal. Therefore, unlike precipitation-driven flood events, 

flooding caused by rising sea levels would have long-term 

consequences. Coastal inundation is one of the most visible 

impacts of rising sea levels. Areas that were once dry further 

inland would gradually shift to episodically inundated 

(during high tides and storms) and then to permanently 

inundated. The impact of sea level rise to the point of 

inundation would be obvious, less so for other impacts.

An example is the salt-water marshes that currently 

exemplify an ecosystem in balance between fresh water and 

saline environments. These unique places provide important 

breeding habitat for many terrestrial and aquatic animal 

species. Rapidly rising sea levels would permeate nonsaline 

forests and grasslands, causing losses of existing vegetation 

without the possibility of replacement by more salt tolerant 

species. Once the existing vegetation dies, the root structure 

that binds the soil system together and provides a buffer 

from incoming tides would also be lost, and coastal erosion 

is likely to accelerate. Although coastal erosion is a naturally 

occurring process in barrier islands and many other areas, an 

increase in the rate and severity of erosion, flooding, and loss 

of vegetative cover that is likely with rising sea levels could 

greatly accelerate the loss of valuable coastal property. How 

rapidly saltwater-tolerant flora and fauna could move across 

the landscape as sites shift from freshwater to saltwater is 

uncertain.

Economic Wellbeing and

Quality of Life

Forecast of Timber Products Markets in 

the Mid-South

Wear and others (2013b) described expected southwide 

timber-market trends, most of which apply to the heavily 

forested areas that are east of the Mid-South. Even the timber 

markets in the forested Ozark and Ouachita Highlands have 

always differed from those of Coastal Plain and Piedmont—

the Ozarks because they support hardwood-dominated 

forests in an environment that is extraordinarily difficult 

for harvesting operations, and the Ouachita because of its 

high concentration of national forests that are not primarily 

managed for commercial wood production. Much of the 

forest and woodland acreage of the Mid-South is >100 miles 

from the nearest pulpmill or chipmill (fig. 17), an indication 

of an imbalance in the supply-demand equation. Counties 

have somewhat more access to sawmills, which on average 

are less costly industrial investments than pulpmills (fig. 18).

But by and large, the economy of the Mid-South will not 

be made or lost through changes in long-term trends from 

traditional forest products markets.

Forecast of Forest Biobased Energy in 

the Mid-South

Alavalapati and others (2013) described alternative outlooks 

for wood-based energy production across the Southern 

United States. Much of their analysis was built on inventory 

data, market trends, and modeling tied to the existing forest 

products industry and forest land ownership in the South, 

an environment that does not translate well into the MidSouth, and especially into the Cross Timbers, High Plains, 

and West Texas Basin and Range sections. A few of their 
58 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

Figure 17—Distance in miles from the forested centers of southern counties to the closest pulpmill or chipmill 

(Source: Wear and others 2013b). 

Distance (miles)

1 – 50

51 – 100

101 – 250

251 – 500

501+

No forest data

500 0 500 1000 Miles

Sawmill distance 

(miles)

1 – 50

51 – 100

101 – 150

No forest data

500 0 500 1000 Miles

Figure 18—Average distance in miles from the forested center of each southern county to the closest five 

sawmills within 150 miles (Source: Wear and others 2013b). 
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 5 59

key findings, however, could probably translate fairly well if 

applied generally to the potential for developing biomass and 

bioenergy markets in the Mid-South.

For example, Alavalapati and others (2013) reported that 

their forecasts of raw material consumption have a high level 

of uncertainty, given the interplay between public policies 

and the decisions that forest owners make about supply and 

investments. They concluded that the biomass requirements 

for energy are not likely to be met through harvest residues 

and urban wood waste alone, and that the preferred feedstock 

would likely be timber harvested specifically for energy 

production. The result could be the emergence of a new 

woody biobased energy market, leading to price increases 

for merchantable timber and increasing returns for forest 

owners. However, in the absence of government support, 

the necessary research, pilot projects, and incentives for 

production and commercialization of woody bioenergy 

markets would be unlikely to develop.

The required technologies exist, but with varied levels of 

feasibility. Combined heat and power, co-firing or direct 

combustion of biomass for electricity, and pellet technologies 

are commercially viable with facilities operating at various 

southern locations; but biochemical and thermochemical 

technologies for converting woody biomass to liquid fuels 

are not yet commercially operational. Fundamentally, the 

challenge is cost. Alavalapati and others (2013) reported that 

the national average price of delivered coal-based electricity 

in 2005 was $5.32 per megawatt hour, whereas the cost of 

electricity from logging residues is roughly 10 times higher; 

conversely, biomass from forest fuel treatment thinnings 

ranged from $6 to $10 per megawatt hour.

One challenge in establishing cost-effective biobased energy 

production is, quite simply, to yard up the raw materials in 

an effective manner and in a way that does not compete with 

existing pulpmill demand. Pulpmills that convert roundwood 

into paper are often significant local and regional economic 

drivers in and of themselves, and redirecting either the 

pulpwood resource or the logging crews that deliver it to the 

mills would be counterproductive to the local or regional 

economy.

Conversely, biobased energy resources must be lucrative 

enough to harvest and deliver the raw material to the energy 

facility. Harvesting solely for energy would likely require 

chipping, bundling, or other densification before transporting 

the material. Otherwise, the raw material would have to ride 

to the mill with wood intended for pulping and sawing, and 

be gathered essentially as a byproduct that is currently an 

integral part of co-firing for most sawmills and pulpmills. 

In short, the challenge is to find the raw material, purchase 

it from a willing landowner at a fair price, find people who 

will harvest and transport it at a living wage, and deliver it 

to a facility that can use it—all within the context of a price 

that can support what is in essence a new sector of the forest 

operations community.

Overcoming this significant challenge requires easy access 

to the wood supply and to distribution markets; such access 

does not yet exist in the Mid-South, especially in the Cross 

Timbers and High Plains.

The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands is on the periphery of 

the western Coastal Plain, which suggests that biomass 

activity may have a place in these forests especially as a 

byproduct of existing management activities. But even in 

the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, the real challenge is access 

and economical transportation of harvested material. 

The issue was last addressed in the late 1990s, when a 

Pacific Rim export market for dense hardwood chips 

became established in the Ozarks. The practice resulted in 

degraded forests, because contractors preferred to highgrade stands rather than to apply silviculturally sound 

thinning operations. But the larger issue was the high cost 

of transporting harvested sawlogs and pulpwood through 

the rugged Boston Mountains to the chipmills along the 

Arkansas River (Gray and Guldin 2001).

Outdoor Recreation

Cordell and others (2013) described demographic trends 

that are expected across the Southern United States. Several 

of these trends have implications for the Mid-South. 

Populations are growing at a faster rate than in the rest of the 

Nation, especially in the Cross Timbers section. Growth is 

reflected in the change in population density, which is highest 

around the major cities of Texas; those high population 

densities are expected to increase recreation pressures on 

public resources—especially in metropolitan areas of Texas, 

and to a lesser extent Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Cordell and others (2013) reported that the activities that 

people choose for outdoor recreation today are different from 

choices that were made by previous generations. Shifting 

from a rural to an urban or suburban lifestyle influences 

the choice of recreation activities, as does ease of access 

to public land, especially lands managed by Federal and 

State agencies. Hunting and fishing remain popular, but bird 

watching, wildlife observation, and photography have begun 

to gain participants. Although recreation forecasts were 

not calculated at the section level, the trend is for continued 

popularity of traditional hunting and fishing activities in rural 

areas and small towns, and increased popularity for other 

activities as populations become more suburban and urban.

Opportunities for recreation on Federal land are 

concentrated in the Ozark and Ouachita Highlands, which 

contain the only national forests in the Mid-South. But 
60 chapter 5 | Effects of Changes on Forests and their Values

other opportunities are available on public lands scattered 

across the other sections. In the Cross Timbers, Federal 

lands include the Caddo National Grasslands north of 

Dallas, properties managed by the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers for flood control, and wildlife refuges that 

are usually associated with rivers, lakes, and the Gulf 

of Mexico. In the High Plains, Federal lands include the 

Black Kettle National Grasslands in western Oklahoma, 

the McClellan Creek National Grasslands in the Texas 

Panhandle, and the Padre Islands National Seashore and 

several wildlife refuges along the Gulf of Mexico. In the 

West Texas Basin and Range section, National Park Service 

properties include Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe 

Mountains National Park, and the Amistad National 

Recreation Area near Del Rio. State parks are usually 

smaller than these Federal holdings but are more numerous 

and more uniformly distributed across the Mid-South; they 

also offer significant opportunities for outdoor activities.

Bowker and others (2013) identified some issues that could 

affect demand for outdoor recreation in the South from 

2010 to 2060. For example, people of different ethnicities, 

genders, income levels, and ages may pursue different kinds 

of activities. Some activities become more popular because 

of new or changing technologies (such as windsurfing or 

jet-skiing), or because equipment becomes more readily 

available (such as kayaking and orienteering). Other factors 

are not likely to change; for example, in 2010 the vast 

majority of recreation occurred within a few hours’ drive of 

the participant’s residence—an attribute likely to be true in 

2060 as well.

Bowker and others (2013) reported a number of key 

recreation forecasts for the period ending in 2060. Landbased activities (developed site use, hiking, horseback 

riding, off-road vehicle use, and visiting primitive sites 

and wilderness areas) are all expected to increase more 

or less constantly with population. Water-based activities 

are also expected to increase more or less constantly with 

population. Nonmotorized boating (canoeing, kayaking, and 

rafting) is likely to increase more rapidly and proportionally 

to population increase than motorized boating because 

the equipment required for participation is less expensive. 

Wildlife-based activities (birding, hunting, and fishing) are 

all expected to increase, but at different rates. Birding is 

expected to increase faster than population growth, in part 

because it can include everything from watching backyard 

feeders to engaging in ecotourism to see unique specimens 

in the wild, a common activity along the Gulf of Mexico. 

Fishing is projected to increase at a rate slightly lower than 

population growth. People in the Mid-South have strong 

affinities for hunting and fishing; however, in a generation 

or two (and certainly by 2060), the number of people 

participating in hunting and fishing as a percentage of the 

population is expected to be lower, leading some to speculate 

that the actual number of hunters will be lower in 2060 than 

today. This trend reflects increasing population of ethnic 

groups that usually eschew hunting, increasing numbers 

of urban residents, higher educational levels that result in 

higher income levels and less need for subsistence hunting 

for food, and declining forest and rangeland area per capita. 

Bowker and others (2013) did not stratify their data below 

the regional level; therefore, one can only speculate whether 

the general trends reported southwide would apply in the 

Mid-South, which has had—and still has—a long and strong 

tradition of hunting and fishing.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 6 61

The biggest concern arising from the analysis of the MidSouth for the Southern Forest Futures Project is not changing 

climate, drought, warmer temperatures, invasive native 

vegetation, threats to forest and woodland health, biomass, 

land use, or water. All of these are important, but they pale in 

comparison to the tremendous implications of one primary 

threat—human population. The 2010 U.S. Census showed a 

10-year population increase of 20.3 to 24.2 million. That rate 

of population growth over five decades would result in a 

79 percent population increase, 20 percent more than the 

Forest Futures Project assumption of 59 percent (Wear and 

Greis 2013). The largest impacts clearly would be in Texas, 

whose population of 25.15 million in 2010 was 20.6 percent 

higher than in 2000 and more than three times the combined 

rate of growth in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The interpretation of the data from the Forest Futures 

technical reports must be made with this in mind. Their 

findings are probably conservative with respect to the 

increase in human populations if growth continues at the rate 

reported by the U.S. Census from 2000 to 2010. That will 

have the most profound effects on the demands that society 

places on natural resources in the Mid-South.

Drought

The 2011 drought in the Mid-South, especially damaging 

for Texas, was certainly a rude awakening. The State has 

experienced droughts of this duration before, but never in 

combination with expanding urbanization and a booming 

population. Texas lost an estimated 2 to 10 percent (or 100 

to 500 million trees) of its forests and woodlands as result of 

that drought.

The experience raised fundamental questions not just for 

Texas but for Oklahoma and Arkansas as well, such as how a 

resource manager can know exactly when a tree is dead and 

why; how mortality might affect canopy cover, wood volume, 

and biomass on a statewide level; and what the implications 

of drought-related tree mortality might be for wildlife and 

wildlife habitat. In addition, there is the practical question of 

large-scale cleanup, which can only be accomplished after 

completion of a hazard estimation that quantifies damage to 

life or property, estimates the cost of tree removal in urban 

settings, and identifies what, if anything, needs to be done 

about standing dead trees in forests, woodlands, popular 

outdoor recreation areas, and the wildland-urban interface.

Anecdotal evidence and analysis of data collected in Texas 

suggest management activities that could have enhanced 

resistance and resilience of forests and woodlands to drought. 

Older mature hardwood and pine stands experienced more 

damage than plantations (whether thinned or unthinned), 

reinforcing the value of shorter rotations, or plantations, 

or both, in managed stands. A larger role for prescribed 

burning would be useful as a conditioning factor in the event 

of wildfires that follow drought episodes. Keeping stocking 

levels at the lower end of fully stocked, and perhaps allowing 

stands to become slightly understocked, would conserve 

water. Ensuring that forest understories are relatively open 

and free of encroaching brush such as redcedar, juniper, and 

live oak would also conserve the water that is available in an 

ecosystem. For example, redcedar studies are underway in 

Oklahoma to quantify that relationship.

Research on the relationship between forest cover and water 

quality and quantity in forests needs to be expanded so 

that it applies to woodland settings as well. Opportunities 

exist for researchers to increase cooperation with municipal 

watersheds and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on 

understanding how urban and suburban development, 

thinning of stands, and removal of encroaching woody 

vegetation affect the flow of water from woodlands into 

reservoirs. In short, research is needed to better understand 

the implications of these and other suggested management 

activities within the context of drought.

Forest and Woodland Operations

By necessity, the emphasis of the Southern Forest Futures 

Project was on southwide changes expected in a number of 

important contexts and issues. However, one issue that is 

important in the Mid-South was not specifically addressed—

how would the forecasted changes dictate alterations in the 

management of forests, woodlands, and pasturelands?

As an example, consider forestry in the Ouachita Mountains, 

where short-rotation intensive plantation management 

Chapter 6.

Management Implications
62 chapter 6 | Management Implications

is practiced on investment lands and where Federal 

agencies manage stands of native species using natural 

regeneration over long rotations. Planting pine seedlings 

is not inexpensive; in the 2012 winter planting season, 

land managers wondered whether seedlings planted in 

2012 would survive on sites affected by the 2011 drought. 

The degree to which other costly treatments—such as 

fertilization and herbicide application—are confounded by 

drought or excessive episodic rainfall is not well understood 

and therefore difficult to predict. Models of fuel moisture 

and fire behavior may need to be modified for extreme 

drought conditions; this is especially important because 

the models often underestimate fire behavior in extremely 

dry conditions. New tools might be needed, both to help 

land managers adapt and to help policymakers develop 

appropriate policies and response capabilities.

Downscaling forest management for application to small 

properties is another opportunity to help landowners, 

not only with tools to manage their own lands but also to 

promote responsible forest and woodland management in 

general for an increasingly urban and suburban society 

that is increasingly distant from the rural landscape. These 

tools would likely be welcome, as forest health and wildlife 

are both high on the list of desired attributes for forest and 

woodland owners and for society in general. The expanding 

second-home market in rural areas would benefit from 

downscaled management recommendations and activities—

for example a backyard prescribed burning program that 

involves burn cooperatives with trained members instead 

of untrained homeowners. Adaptation of forest certification 

programs beyond the forest products industry to smaller 

sized tracts would open those holdings to viable markets for 

sawlogs and pulpwood.

If the level of education of landowners increases, their 

interest in management and receptiveness to management 

advice could also increase, creating an appetite for 

communication with professional foresters and especially for 

management advice that they can use on smaller forests or 

woodlands. Foresters need to learn how to deliver effective 

management not only for a particular stand, but also across a 

landscape, especially if advising owners of highly parcelized 

properties.

Each of the three States in the Mid-South has a set of 

voluntary BMPs in place for forested conditions, and 

compliance levels are generally quite high. However, 

whether BMPs for forests conditions apply equally well in 

woodlands and grasslands is unknown. If not, they would 

need to be modified to reflect the challenges that woodland 

and grassland owners face. An example is the practice of 

retaining trees within streamside management zones, which 

is considered to be an effective way of ameliorating water 

temperature along permanent streams and moderating 

sediment delivery in forests. In woodlands and grasslands, 

a different approach may be necessary if those trees have 

the potential to encroach on native vegetation or increase 

ecosystem water stress.

Recreation

Overall, the interaction of increasing populations with 

finite recreation areas foretells several important likely 

developments—more people will be participating in outdoor 

recreation activities, the number of participation days in 

these activities will continue to increase, and the land base 

(especially the Federal land base) available for recreational 

activities will remain static. Over the next 50 years, 

recreational use in all kinds of activities will likely increase, 

some more than others, potentially leading to more conflicts 

among participants.

With increasing population and increased demand 

for outdoor recreation forecasted, conservation-based 

management activities that have traditionally been promoted 

by State game and fish agencies would need to continue. 

However, the number of participants who purchase fishing 

and especially hunting licenses is not projected to grow 

rapidly, and absolute numbers might even be lower than 

today because of changing demographics from rural to 

suburban and urban areas. Because many conservation 

activities such as wildlife habitat improvements have 

traditionally been funded by the sale of hunting and fishing 

licenses, resources might be reduced over time, and new 

revenue streams would be needed to support that demand.

Forest Biobased Energy

The market for wood, fiber, and biomass that existed in the 

20th century, with its emphasis on milled lumber and waste 

byproducts, has changed its emphasis to pulpwood, fiber, and 

scraps with decreasing regard for milled lumber. Markets are 

changing, as is the relationship between the forest products 

industry and its suppliers on private forest ownerships, 

whether they are “commercial” private owners such as real 

estate investment trusts and timber investment management 

organizations, or more traditional family forest owners. The 

forest products industry, which once owned vast acreages 

in addition to mills, now has a primary focus on mills; 

increasingly, companies rely on the free market to supply 

their mills. Sales of large high-quality sawtimber that once 

commanded $80 per ton in the 1990s now can be purchased 

for $30 per ton in western counties along the Gulf of Mexico. 

Crews with the equipment needed to handle large products 

are disappearing, and mills with headrigs big enough to 

cut large products are on the decline. Although all of these 

changes are understandable from an economic perspective, 

they do not bode well for sustainable forestry that can create 

future options for landowners.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 6 63

Part of the driving force behind these trends is a change 

in industrial capability, both in the woods and at the mills. 

Mechanized equipment is now available to log, haul, and 

delimb trees in the woods, transport them to mills, and 

effectively process them. Silviculture has been simplified in 

the woods—especially on lands held by timber investment 

groups—into short-rotation fiber farming to fulfill mill 

contract requirements; the result is a very efficient process 

for harvesting trees in the woods, provided that they are 

all of similar size. In essence, the relationship between the 

timber investment groups that have contracts to provide raw 

materials for mills and the mills themselves, which have 

been modified for a product stream that is predominantly all 

of one size, drives a homogenization of product size, market 

conditions, and mill demand that extends beyond the timberinvestment group to all private forest ownerships.

All of these developments do not bode well for the 

establishment of biomass opportunities from heretoforeunmerchantable standing trees and residuals. These 

products are not valued highly, partly because they contain 

marginal amounts of volume for biomass, but also because 

their structures are very heterogeneous. Redcedar and post 

oak are classic examples. Open-grown redcedar trees can 

retain limbs to the ground, they are difficult to harvest 

even with mechanized equipment, and their bushy limbs 

do not compact very easily for hauling to a mill. Post oaks 

in woodlands seemingly are as wide as they are tall—they 

cannot simply be thrown in a chipper without intensive 

delimbing. The cost of labor required to process these 

materials exceeds their value; under a traditional paradigm of 

forest economics, the harvest would not be justified because 

it cannot turn a profit.

Perhaps the time has come for a new paradigm that 

minimizes cost. Many landowners in the Cross Timbers 

and High Plains are working to restore woodlands that have 

become overgrown with native species such as redcedar, 

mesquite, and oak. They are willing to spend ≥$100 per acre 

in out-of-pocket costs to remove 6 to 10 tons of encroaching 

woody biomass. Even if a biomass market would not allow 

them to break even, any positive cash flow from the sale of the 

biomass they are already removing could help partially defray 

the cost of the treatment. That is an attractive alternative for 

landowners committed to the restoration of their grasslands 

and woodlands. An added benefit would accrue from 

enhanced water conservation, as described previously. What 

would be needed is a way to downscale energy production 

so that facilities are located 50 to 100 miles from the sources 

of the biomass. The challenge would be to develop that 

capability in a site that could be operational for a given length 

of time, and then moved to a new location.

Also missing from this scenario is the availability of tools 

and equipment designed to harvest small tracts and tracts 

with difficult biomass, as well as opportunities such as 

landowner cooperatives that would consolidate the acreage 

needed to attract producers. The Cross Timbers and High 

Plains have already developed an infrastructural extension 

network based on their long history of agricultural and 

rangeland activity. That could be useful in developing 

biomass as a marketable commodity. They would need better 

estimates of volume and yield especially for nontraditional 

woody biomass at the stand and landscape scales, equipment 

that is specifically designed for efficient harvesting and 

transportation of unwieldy biomass, management guidelines 

that are tailored for small landowners, and silvicultural 

practices and prescriptions that would restore desired 

woodland and grassland vegetation while removing 

unwanted biomass. New partnerships between traditional 

forest management agencies and the Natural Resources 

Conservation Service could introduce landowners to the 

resources available through existing plant materials centers 

and the opportunities these centers provide for restoration of 

native vegetation.

In summary, the future development of a biomass and 

bioenergy industry in the Mid-South is unlikely unless 

a targeted market can take advantage of the tremendous 

amount of dispersed woody plant resource occurring in 

woodland ecosystems that are encroaching in pasturelands 

and grasslands. If efficient industrial processes could be 

developed that would be somewhat portable, partially 

reimburse a landowner for the cost of conducting the 

vegetation removal treatment, and minimize the hauling 

distance for the resource, the next challenge would be to 

determine whether such an operation could be sustainable 

in the political and environmental context. Of these two 

challenges, the first is probably the more daunting.

Wildlife

The Mid-South is a wonderfully diverse area, with more 

species in more distinct ecosystems than anywhere else 

in the South. However, a growing human population has 

led to increased urban development, expansion into the 

wildland-urban interface, and changing patterns of land 

use. When coupled with the prospects for increasingly 

warmer temperatures, increasingly dry conditions, and less 

water on landscapes, these societal changes would manifest 

themselves as changing habitat conditions, and those 

changing habitats will likely have an effect on the absolute 

number and geographic distribution of plant and animal 

species.
64 chapter 6 | Management Implications

The Mid-South species at risk are in specialized and 

restricted habitats that are likely to change, and from which 

no pathway for migration is available. When the habitat 

for a given species becomes inhabitable, animals will seek 

a suitable habitat by migrating, unless the migration is 

constrained by barriers. Migration of plant species across a 

landscape in response to a forcing factor such as changing 

climate is more difficult to predict or to enable, given the 

varying ways that plants reproduce and disperse from one 

generation to the next. In all likelihood, a species near the 

boundary of its natural geographic distribution may be 

more at risk of local extirpation than species in the heart of 

their natural range. However, considerably more research is 

needed to understand the ways that plant and animal species 

would relocate to suitable habitat within short periods of 

time under changing climatic conditions. Some species 

would be likely to flourish in place, or to migrate quickly and 

vigorously. Others would struggle to persist in their current 

location. Yet others would be unable to survive in their 

current location and would be unable to relocate; for them, 

extirpation or even extinction would be the inevitable result.

Assisted migration has been suggested as a possible tool 

to help species adapt in a changing climate. Some very 

narrowly defined methods—such as afforestation or 

reforestation by planting—may be available for moving 

common and dominant tree species from one location to 

another. Although clearcutting a mature stand of pines 

and replanting a new age cohort of pines is a common 

forestry practice in the South, “assisted migration” of all 

the interrelated subdominant species-midstory woody plant 

species, understory annual and perennial species, soil fauna 

and flora, and the vertebrate and invertebrate organisms 

that have evolved with the dominant tree species is simply 

untenable. The protocols and nursery infrastructure needed 

to propagate and disperse many of these subdominant 

species simply do not exist. Establishing a 40-acre stand 

of longleaf pine with a suitable complement of annual and 

perennial plants into the Ouachitas, for example, would be an 

extraordinary ecological challenge; but it would also be costprohibitive in any rational practical context at the stand level, 

and even more so at a landscape scale.

By law, State and Federal agencies are required to protect 

endangered and threatened species and to manage habitat for 

population recovery, but agency budgets are not increasing 

fast enough to support the increasing monitoring and habitatrestoration needs for an increasing number of species. For 

example, in the summer of 2013, white-nose syndrome 

was reported in the caves of the Arkansas Ozarks, raising 

concerns about survival of many local bat species. This was 

an inevitable outcome, but nonetheless disappointing. 

If concerns are realized and species become threatened or 

endangered, the importance of research that quantifies the 

forest and woodland habitat requirements for forest bats will 

become extremely important—not so much to understand 

requirements in the vicinity of cave entrances, but rather 

to understand how forest bats use general habitat features 

(such as standing dead snags in Ozark-Ouachita Highlands 

pine stands), and whether bat species can adapt to new and 

different habitats for roosting and hibernacula in forested 

terrain. It will be difficult for Federal and State agencies to 

balance the increasing need for state-of-the-art science and 

management advice about threatened and endangered species 

in an era of decreasing budgets and human resources.

Invasive Species

Ironically, invasive plants provide a model for success in 

changing conditions. Some have unique attributes that allow 

successful establishment and growth to the point where they 

outcompete native species and disrupt stand dynamics and 

development. Others have developed unique adaptations 

for widespread dispersal—either through natural patterns 

such as bird dissemination of seed from Chinese tallow 

or Brazilian peppertree, or through unintended human 

assistance such as cogongrass dispersal from one stand to 

another in the mud on logging equipment. Some species have 

been introduced from other countries, but others, such as 

mesquite and juniper, are natives that are taking advantage 

of altered land-use patterns by expanding their occupancy 

of ecosystems. Control or removal of invasive plants will 

largely depend on the actions of individual landowners and 

their ability to afford effective control treatments.

Unlike invasive plants, which generally cause only localized 

difficulty on a small scale, insect and disease pests threaten 

species across large landscapes. The three major catastrophic 

losses of the 20th century were from Dutch elm disease, 

chestnut blight, and the recent hemlock woolly adelgid 

outbreak in the Eastern United States. Each of these pests has 

resulted not only in widespread mortality but also in rangewide losses of natural regeneration and even in scattered 

instances of utter failure for the affected tree species to 

become reestablished in nature.

Whether discussing insect or disease pests of pines or 

hardwoods, the future is clouded with uncertainty. Scientists 

do not know how changing climate will affect insect and 

disease pests, or which pests will be seen as scourges 

of forests and woodlands in 50 years. The best advice 

resource managers can give is to maintain healthy forests. 

Unfortunately, even that may not stop insect and disease 

pests, known or unknown, in the future.
Outlook for Mid-South Forests | chapter 6 65

Fire

The management and policy challenges associated with fire 

in the forest and woodland landscapes of the 21st century 

are perhaps the most difficult to address. On the one hand, 

prescribed burning across a large percentage of the landscape 

serves an important role in conservation. In addition to 

reducing fuels and promoting open woodland conditions that 

are currently underrepresented on the landscape, prescribed 

fire is critical for the restoration of the endangered redcockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) in the OuachitaOzark Highlands, and for reducing incursions of redcedar, 

mesquite, and juniper into the woodlands and prairies of 

Oklahoma and Texas. The regular use of prescribed fire 

may reduce mortality of dominant overstory species in the 

event of wildfire. A host of native species that depend on 

open understory conditions in forests and woodlands would 

benefit from expansion of prescribed burning to Mid-South 

landscapes.

On the other hand, the predicted pattern of increasing 

population, increasing temperature, and increasing drought 

adds a perspective that is difficult to address. Climate 

changes that are forecasted would reduce the number of 

days that are suitable for prescribed burning, and increased 

populations and increased urban, suburban, and wildlandurban interface areas would exacerbate smoke management 

issues. The result would be reduced opportunities to initiate 

prescribed burning and reduced areas burned in any given 

day, which would increasingly limit the scale and scope 

of the resource management benefits that derive from 

prescribed fire.

Increased air temperature, drought frequency and severity, 

and human population growth would increase the threat from 

wildfire, at the same time that wildfires are expected to occur 

more frequently and cover larger areas. If weather conditions 

result in more frequent severe thunderstorms, the resulting 

increases in lightning strikes would expose more landscapes 

to the threat of wildfire. In such an environment, State 

agencies would need early warning protocols for wildfire 

detection and response and anytime operational information 

to help plan or position resources.

Questions still linger about existing fuels and fire behavior 

models that were developed based on past conditions; 

conditions that may be encountered in the future could 

easily exceed the range of variability that underlie current 

models. Validating existing models of fire behavior and 

controllability based on current experience and revising 

models that do not match predicted fire behavior will be 

essential, especially in light of suspicions that models may be 

too conservative for the hotter and drier conditions that are 

predicted.

SUMMARY

The four sections of the Mid-South Region offer vistas of 

unparalleled ecological variety, species diversity, and scenic 

beauty. The sheer physical size of the area is difficult to 

grasp; for example, the straight distance from Little Rock 

to El Paso is 840 miles, and 700 miles from Enid, OK to 

Harlingen, TX. From the highly dissected terrain in the 

Ozark-Ouachita Highlands section, to the rolling upland 

woodlands of the Cross Timbers section, to the windswept 

prairie features of the High Plains section and the desert 

ecosystems of the West Texas Basin and Range section, the 

Mid-South supports more, and more varied, ecosystems than 

anywhere else in the South.

The prevailing trends from east to west are reflected in one 

simple statistic—from Little Rock to El Paso, an inch of 

precipitation is lost for every 20 miles. With the Cornerstone 

Futures projecting that air temperature will increase, 

precipitation will decrease, and population will grow by ≥60 

percent, continually rising water stress is expected, reflecting 

increased functional aridity. Issues for society to address 

include diminishing water supplies and the distribution 

of increasingly scarce fresh water for agricultural use and 

human consumption, coupled in coastal areas with rising salt 

water levels.

The Cornerstone Futures also predict that changing climate 

and water stress will combine to modify existing forest 

and woodland ecosystems, with implications for native 

vegetation dynamics, the distribution of tree and plant 

species, the sustainability of ecosystems, and the native 

terrestrial and aquatic wildlife species that depend on those 

ecosystems. Some species would respond favorably to these 

changes; the effects would be adverse for others, especially 

those with limited geographic ranges, specialized resource 

needs and habitat requirements, or an inability to easily 

reproduce and disperse.

These changes are compounded by the likely increased 

activity of unwanted native and nonnative invasive plants. 

The challenge in western areas of the Mid-South is not 

from invasive plant species, but rather from grasslands 

that are reverting to woodlands—the result of decadeslong alterations both in range management and in burning 

practices that have allowed encroachment by juniper and 

mesquite. Reversal of this trend will be increasingly difficult 

given increasing drought, increasing risk from wildfire, and 

the absence of management guidelines.

Nonnative insect and disease pests also fall in the category of 

unwanted species. Today, the list of pests that threaten MidSouth forests and rangelands is longer than it was several 

decades ago. Several of these threaten substantial damage 

that could result in widespread demise of key species, such 
66 chapter 6 | Management Implications

as the loss of ash species to the emerald ash borer, the loss 

of soapberry to the soapberry borer, and the loss of oaks to 

sudden oak death. How these pests will interact with hosts 

across the Mid-South landscape under changing conditions is 

still a matter of some conjecture.

Analysis suggests that the demand for outdoor recreation 

will likely expand proportionally with population. Motorized 

activities such as power-boating and all-terrain vehicle use 

and nonmotorized activities such as hiking, birdwatching, 

outdoor photography, canoeing, and kayaking are all 

expected to continue increasing. However, any increased 

activity would necessarily be concentrated on a fixed area 

of land, potentially resulting in use conflicts, especially on 

public lands and bodies of water. Land managers will need 

new skills to mediate and resolve those conflicts. Data also 

suggest that participation in hunting and fishing will likely 

decrease with increases in population, and that the number 

of hunters could decline —the result of societal shifts from 

rural to urban or suburban lifestyles. If States rely on fees 

from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses to support 

resource conservation, plans will need to be developed to 

address the resulting shortfall.

It is likely that changing climatic and economic conditions 

will trigger new issues across the Mid-South region that 

were not analyzed in the Forest Futures project. One 

important issue that has emerged in the past 5 years has 

been the expansion of oil and gas development in shale 

formations across the region. Production of oil and natural 

gas through hydraulic fracturing have commenced in the 

Fayetteville Shale in the Ozarks, the Woodford Shale in 

eastern Oklahoma, the Barnett Shale in north central Texas, 

the Eagle Ford Shale in southeast to south central Texas, and 

several west Texas Permian Basin shale deposits. The main 

feature of this economic development is the large amount of 

water required for its production (Nicot and Scanlon 2012), 

which will certainly add to the stress on water resources of 

the Mid-South.

Management of the existing forest, woodland, and rangeland 

resources may require modification within the context of 

rising temperatures, decreasing precipitation, increasing 

drought, and the many other changes forecasted for the 

Mid-South. Questions have already been asked by land 

managers—as yet, unanswered by research—about routine 

operational activities such as whether planting pine seedlings 

in the winter after a severe drought will affect survival the 

following year, and whether thinning during drought years 

will invite attacks by pine bark beetles. More research is 

needed to convert existing management prescriptions into 

prescriptions for management in a changing climate.

A major effort to revamp the entire forestry profession or to 

move ecosystems dozens of miles northward in response to a 

changing climate is unlikely; such ambitious landscape-level 

changes simply are not operationally practical or feasible. 

Instead, management of forests and woodlands in the face 

of changing conditions will likely mirror past efforts to 

redirect management within the context of forest health, such 

as the responses to outbreaks of southern pine beetles in the 

latter part of the 20th century. When atypical disturbance 

events such as drought-related mortality occur, resource 

managers typically work in affected stands to salvage 

losses, attempt to improve resistance to disturbance agents, 

develop management prescriptions that promote resilience 

in the face of new disturbance events, and reestablish stands 

that do not recover on their own in a timely manner. But a 

successful response to a drought, insect outbreak, or other 

event triggered by changing climate would be most likely 

if the landowner has an active management plan before the 

disturbance event occurs.

The availability of wood and fiber is increasing across the 

Mid-South, but so are markets, bringing changes to the 

relationship between the forest products industry and the 

suppliers of timber on public and private lands. Industry 

capacity to process sawlogs and pulpwood is also changing. 

Mechanization is increasing, and working in the woods 

in the 21st century is more likely to involve operating a 

machine than using a chainsaw to fell and buck a tree. In 

this new environment, both the logger and the mill benefit if 

all the trees are of similar size, with additional advantages 

accruing for those involved in hauling and processing. But 

trees and other woody vegetation that are outside the optimal 

size range are becoming increasingly inefficient to handle, 

which complicates the development of new markets such as 

cellulosic bioenergy.

Finally, some of the Southern Forest Futures Project forecasts 

for the Mid-South—specifically those that pertain to the 

Cross Timbers, High Plains, and West Texas Basin and 

Range sections—do not have the benefit of repeated survey 

measurements. Estimates of resource conditions from the 

initial survey implemented over the past decade in these 

sections have been calculated, but repeated measurements 

of permanent survey plots are essential for developing 

accurate trend information and for quantifying how resource 

attributes such as timber and fiber volume change over time. 

Repeated measures will greatly improve the accuracy of data 

on long-term changes in vegetation of forests, woodlands, 

and rangelands. Over the next two decades, the accumulation 

of forest survey data will support a much more dynamic 

analysis of resource status and trends across the Mid-South. 

Also, the forecasts must be interpreted with this caveat—

that the underlying population assumptions are probably 

conservative with respect to the Mid-South, and that the 

demands society places on natural resources, especially 

water, in the Mid-South are likely to result in profound 

consequences.
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Guldin, J.M.; Hallgren, S.; and Crooks, J.S. 2015. Outlook for Mid-South forests: 

a subregional report from the Southern Forest Futures Project. Gen. Tech. 

Rep. SRS-206. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, 

Southern Research Station. 70 p.

This report presents forecasts from the Southern Forest Futures Project that are 

specific to the Mid-South, which consists of four sections located within Arkansas, 

Oklahoma, and Texas: the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands, the Cross Timbers, the High 

Plains, and the West Texas Basin and Range. Ranging from Little Rock, AR to 

El Paso, TX, it is the most diverse subregion in the South. The Mid-South faces a 

number of important challenges to management of forests and woodlands over the 

next 50 years, including population increases, the likelihood for increased drought, 

increased demand for water and water supply stress, sea level rise along the Gulf 

of Mexico, and invasive native species. Understanding these challenges, and the 

implications they could have on management and policy in the region, is critical 

to maintaining the diversity, health, productivity, and sustainability of Mid-South 

forests, woodlands, and grasslands.

Keywords: Climate change, Cross Timbers, drought, forest management, High 

Plains, Mid-South, Ouachita, Ozark, Southern Forest Futures Project, water, West 

Texas Basin and Range, woodlands.
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