The influence of urbanization on timberland use by forest type in the Southern United States

We use a modified multinomial logit approach to quantify the influence of urbanization on timberland use in general and by forest type in eight southern states in the U.S. between 1992 and 1997. Our results show that urbanization, economic returns, demographics, economic growth, and land quality explain the decline in timberland use in general. However, these factors impact softwood, hardwood, and mixed forest-type timberland in different magnitudes, and treating all timberland as one category imposes undue restrictions on estimation models. Modeling timberland use by forest type can improve land use projections.