Patrick D. Miles

Title: Research Forester
Unit: Forest Inventory & Analysis
Previous Unit: Forest Inventory & Analysis
Address: Northern Research Station
1992 Folwell Ave
St. Paul, MN 55108
Phone: 651-649-5146
E-mail: Contact Patrick D. Miles

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Education

• University of Minnesota, M.S. Forestry, 1984
• University of Minnesota, B.S. Forestry, 1981

Civic & Professional Affiliations

Society of American Foresters

Current Research

I am the RPA National Database Manager and am currently compiling statistics for the 2007 report on the Forest Resources of the United States. I also maintain the national Forest Inventory and Analysis database. I provide technical support and access to these databases through publicly available web applications and download files.

I am analyzing and reporting on the current forest inventory of Minnesota.

Why is This Important

FIA has traditionally been used at the strategic level. I am working on two projects that are national in scope:

1. Using the FIA database to identify areas of high fire hazard and calculates the cost and benefits of mitigation, and
2. using the FIA database to identify potential biomass energy feedstocks to help meet the Dept. of Energy’s goal of meeting 30 percent of the nation’s liquid fuel needs by the year 2030.

I am also working to make FIA data more useful to forest planners and land managers. I have developed routines for generating FIA data in a format suitable for use with the Forest Vegetation Simulator for planning purposes. I am working on a Web application that will allow land managers to use FIA data for land management purposes by more fully using remote sensing data.

Future Research

• Work with other scientists to extend the utility of Forest Inventory data.
• Incorporate Forest Health Monitoring data into current Web applications where appropriate.
• Develop additional tools and datasets for GIS users with expanded capabilities for generating user-defined columns.
• Incorporate social and economic data into current/future tools.

Featured Publications

Additional Online Publications