A U.S. Forest Service survey has revealed the high costs of the California drought to one of the state's most treasured features: its sprawling forests.
Susan Murphy reports: "An estimated 12 million trees across California’s forestlands have died over the past year because of extreme drought conditions, according to an aerial survey conducted April 8-17 by the U.S. Forest Service."
A later paragraph makes it clear that the dead trees were found in Southern California forest areas, so the potential for deaths is even greater for the entirety of the state. And the article focuses on the region's forest in places like the Cleveland, San Bernardino, Angeles and Los Padres national forests. In San Diego County alone, 82,528 trees, "mostly Jeffrey pines across Mt. Laguna," have died in San Diego County.
The article also explains how trees living close together must compete over limited moisture, contributing to the mortality of huge numbers of trees during drought events.
FULL STORY: California Drought Killed 12 Million Forest Trees Since Last Year
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research