Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium
Mission and Goals
The Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium (SOFAC) develops forest sector market models for application to forest resource assessments in the South, U.S., and the World. SOFAC modelers and members will be able to use the SOFAC suite of models and research to simultaneously project timber inventory, supply, and prices for a variety of regions and a variety of timber products across the South. SOFAC will continue cooperative university-industry-public agency cooperation in southern and national forest sector economic modeling, enhancing graduate instruction in forest economics and modeling.
Save the Date for the 2024 SOFAC Technical Meeting
The SOFAC Technical Meeting will take place February 7th-8th at NC State’s Plant Sciences Building on Centennial Campus. A hybrid option will also be available.
Please complete the registration form for the 2024 Technical Meeting here.
SOFAC Technical Meeting Agenda
February 7th:
- 8:00-9:00: Coffee and light refreshments
- 9:00-9:15: Welcome and Introductions (Baker)
- 9:15-10:00: FIA updates and discussion (Rossi)
- 10:00-10:30: Proposed next steps with FIA and discussion (Sheffield, Rossi)
- 10:30-10:45: Coffee break
- 10:45-12:00: SRTS Updates, next steps for development, and member feedback session (Rossi, Abt, Baker)
- 12:00-1:00: Lunch break
- 1:00-2:30: Graduate student research highlights – highlighting new tools and data products, discussion (Fuller, Puls, Manner)
- 2:30-3:15: SOFAC hardwood research update and HW SRTS (Dhungel)
- 3:15-3:30: Refreshments break
- 3:30-5:00: Special research topic updates: Harvested wood product carbon flows, GHG Protocol concerns, Hurricanes, Recent policy developments (Baker)
- 5:00-5:30: Wrap up discussion and SOFAC member feedback.
- 5:30-7:00: Happy hour/social event for in-person attendees
February 8th:
- 9:00-10:30: Guest model spotlight
- 10:30-1:00: Optional SRTS training module (Rossi, others)
- 12:30: Meeting adjourns, optional group discussion and SRTS troubleshooting.
Get the Latest News through our SOFAC Blog
- January 13, 2024 – New Markets for Small Roundwood and Forest Residues in Appalachia?
- December 21, 2023 – Changes in hardwood volumes across the U.S. South following updated NSVB equations
- December 6, 2023 – Changes in pine volumes across the U.S. South following updated NSVB equations
- October 4, 2023 – Timber utilization by size class across the U.S. South
- February 22, 2023 – Demand growth and price responsiveness can influence inventory tipping points of high-grade white oak
- October 20, 2022 – Growing Stock vs. All-Live Inventory Data: Historical and Projected Trends
- July 22, 2022 – Changes in growing stock inventory data
- May 19, 2022 – TPO data: recent trends and county-level variation (white paper).
- November 8, 2021 – The relationship between mortgage rates and sawtimber prices.
- October 4, 2021 – An approach which can visualize the difference in market- and policy-driven changes in forest carbon sequestration over time.
Models
The core SOFAC modeling framework is the SubRegional Timber Supply (SRTS) Model, which is a bio-economic model that integrates forest inventory and analysis data and economic principles to estimate inventory, supply, demand, and price trends.
SOFAC integrates currently available forest resource data from the USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program and economic theory to model timber supply, demand, and prices in the South by local area; analyze the status of southern timber supply periodically; and analyze the impacts of new market and policy factors on timber supply.
Models that are linked to SRTS include modules that periodically collect and update the USDA Forest Service FIA data. Further, SRTS is linked to other economic frameworks that provide important data elements, including projections of:
- Land use change,
- Pine plantation responses to price changes,
- Timber demand and removals, and
- Climate impacts on forest productivity.
This suite of models is then used to project timber supply at the regional to local level under a range of economic and policy scenarios in the South, with occasional applications in the Northeast and Midwest.
In addition to SRTS, SOFAC affiliates work with a wide range of economic modeling tools, ranging from spatially explicit frameworks to global models of forest product markets and land use. These models include:
- The Global Timber Model (GTM)
- The US Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model (FASOM)
- The Land Use and Resource Allocation (LURA) Model
- The Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM)
SOFAC affiliates also perform timber investment and production economics studies are performed periodically with graduate students, including analysis of global timber investments, logging capacity, biomass harvesting contracts, and timber market structure.
Applications
SOFAC affiliates have completed recent studies on topics such as new forest products processing capacity or closures, growth and removal cycles, wood chip demand, bioenergy, wood pellets, and drivers of land use change. We are actively modeling the market and resource implications of using more roundwood for bioenergy (including the impact of state, federal, and EU policies); the effects of holding more sawtimber for longer periods; evaluating the effects of carbon policies on southern U.S. forests; and assessing the impacts of forest market structure on timberland investments.
Recent research efforts led by SOFAC faculty affiliates cover the following topics:
- Modeling southern forest futures
- Forest carbon management and policy analysis
- Forest bioenergy analysis and modeling
- Identifying hotspots for new forests and silvicultural investments
- Projecting global forest product trade flows
- Exploring interactions between forests and water resource management
- Modeling the potential implications of environmental change on forest management and markets.
People
Justin S. Baker, Director of SOFAC and Associate Professor of Forest Resource Economics
David J. Rossi, SOFAC Research Scholar
Robert Abt, Principal SRTS Developer and Professor of Forest Economics
Kelley McCarter, SOFAC Meeting Coordinator
Graduate Students:
Gaurav Dhungel, NCSU FER
Madisen Fuller, NCSU FER
Olakunle Sodiya, NCSU FER