Printer-friendlyForest Health Aerial Survey Program
The state of New York is approximately 30 million acres in area, with 18.6 million acres of that area designated as forest. With such a large area for possible threats by insects, diseases, human activities and weather events, a comprehensive and expedient aerial survey plan was created to monitor for such damages.
Defoliated deciduous trees in summer
Each June the Department of Environmental Conservation teams up with the New York State Police Aviation Unit to conduct a two-month aerial survey of the state's forests. The survey begins in the southern Hudson Valley near Newburgh and ends in the St. Lawrence Lowlands near Plattsburgh. The aerial survey for 2007 accounted for approximately 26 million acres of New York's total area. Sensitive and restricted airspaces, as well as small areas between parallel flight lines (caused by visibility constraints) were not surveyed and account for the remaining area of the state.
The objective of the survey is to collect general information about forest health conditions for dissemination to state regional office foresters and private forest owners, annually. The data is used for forest management and monitoring at the state level, as well as the systemic tracking of possible causal agents, which threaten our forests on a national level.
Available Data
The aforementioned data and information gathered from these surveys is available on CD by mail. The CD contains the 2007 aerial survey report, pertinent maps, and the original forest aerial data from 2002-2007. For a copy of this free CD, please email us at lflands@gw.dec.state.ny.us or write us at NYS DEC, Division of Lands and Forests, Forest Health Section, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4253. Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download from Adobe) is needed to view this CD.
The NYSDEC 2007 Aerial Survey Report, which is provided with the CD, is also available from this web page.
