March 6, 2015

Useful Web Tools for Forest Landowners

This document was developed to assist Forest Landowners with technical reference information to help educate and inform landowners of useful tools that are free and available to the public.

USDA –

NRCS WA -

WA DNR –

WSU Extension -

NRCS – Electronic Field Office Technical Guide (Efotg)

  • Use to find Technical Notes that can assist with evaluating resources and recommendation guidance documents – Section 1
  • Forestry Technical Note 10 Forest Stand Density Guide
  • Biological Technical Note 14 – Aquatic & Terrestrial Habitat Guide
  • Environment Evaluation Worksheet (CAP52) Revised 02/14
  • Click on the WA State Laws Tab for useful links

NRCS - Technical Resources – Engineering documents and standard drawings

  • Use to find standard engineering designs and drawings
  • Forest Roads, Fences, etc.

Parcel Information – County Parcel viewer

  • Use to find County Assessor information on your property
  • Use identify button to pull site specific county information for your property

Web Soil Survey – Custom Soil Reports for your property

  • Click on green button to launch WSS
  • Define your Area of Interest (AOI)
  • Select different soil reports you would like to pull
  • Use Add to Cart after each soil report
  • When all reports are added you can Check Out and download the PDF Custom Soil Report –No charge or fees

FPARS – Forest Practices Activity Mapping Tool

  • Use to pull DNR maps showing Forest Site Class, Streams, Waterbodies, and Wetland type.
  • Link is halfway down the webpage

DNR Garmin

  • Useful tool to convert GPS data into different formats
  • Use anytime I take a GPS waypoint

Department of Ecology – Water Quality Assessment for Washington

  • Use to find out stream water typing and impacted waterbodies.
  • 303(d) streams and impaired waterbodies

USDA Plant Database - Useful Technical Plant information

  • You can search for any plant by common or scientific names.
  • Gives great plant specific plant data
  • Native, invasive, noxious
  • Plant growth characteristics

Pacific Northwest Weed Handbook

  • Very useful management and chemical information on how to treat vegetation and/or invasive species to achieve desired management objectives.

USFS – Forest Insect & Disease Leaflets

  • Great technical information on Forest land health
  • Gives identification guides and recommended treatment to deal with forest insects and diseases.

Society of American Foresters (SAF) – Forestry resources

  • Encyclopedia of forestry terms

Smart Phone Applications:

Note – Phone applications may not be free to download. The links below guide you to the website. You may have to purchase or find these applications on your smart phone app purchasing software.

MotionX-GPS –

  • One stop shop for GPS phone application that can take tracks, points, photos, overlay maps, and send information from the field to email. I use this 99% of the time in the field for my GPS. Downfall is it cannot load the map imagery if cell signal is low.

California Soil Resource Lab – Web Soil Survey on your phone

  • The app allows you to get the soil information specifically to the spot you are standing.
  • Note – Only one soil series will be available