{"id":3412,"date":"2011-12-20T09:05:13","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=3412"},"modified":"2011-12-20T09:00:44","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T15:00:44","slug":"hundreds-of-millions-of-trees-could-be-lost-to-the-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/20\/hundreds-of-millions-of-trees-could-be-lost-to-the-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Millions of Trees Could be Lost to the Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by flickr dj @ oxherder arts\/Creative Commons<\/p>

An Ashe Juniper tree.<\/p><\/div>\n

A new estimate by the Texas Forest Service<\/a> says that as many as 500 million trees have died this year because of the drought. Using data from foresters, the group estimated that “100 million to 500 million trees with a diameter of 5 inches or larger on forestland were estimated to have succumbed to the drought.” That’s\u00a0anywhere\u00a0from two to ten percent of the 4.9 billion trees in Texas.<\/p>\n

The extreme drought, sustained high winds and record heat this year wrought havoc on Texas’ trees. \u201cLarge numbers of trees in both urban communities and rural forests have died or are struggling to survive,”\u00a0Burl Carraway, department head of Sustainable Forestry\u00a0at the service said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three areas were hit the hardest: south of San Angelo towards west Texas, several counties “saw\u00a0extensive mortality among Ashe junipers,” the service says. The Houston area lost lobolly pines, and Bastrop county and surrounding areas had “extensive mortality” of cedars and post oaks.<\/p>\n

How did the service come up with the estimate? Carraway said in an interview that “it’s a difficult process, especially this time of year when hardwood trees naturally don’t have their leaves.” The service went through a process where they talked to 15 to 20 local experts throughout the state and worked with them to estimate a range of how many trees had been killed this year due to the drought. These levels of mortality are “probably unprecedented in terms of what we’ve seen since we’ve been collecting this data,” he says.<\/p>\n

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