Definition:

This is the County Forests layer dissolved by county from a stand (or forest management) layer used in the Wisconsin Forest Inventory & Reporting System (WisFIRS) and intended for cartographic representation of county forests in Wisconsin.

"County forests" include all county lands entered and participating under ch. 77 on October 2, 1963, and all county lands designated as county forests by the county board or the forestry committee and entered under the county forest law and designated as "county forest lands" or "county special use lands" as hereinafter provided.

Geographic Extent:

Statewide (Only 30 counties that have County Forest Lands).

Source Scale:

Varied

Purpose/Background:

The purpose of county forests is to provide a permanent program of county forests and to enable and encourage the planned development and management of the county forests for optimum production of forest products together with recreational opportunities, wildlife, watershed protection and stabilization of stream flow, giving full recognition to the concept of multiple-use to assure maximum public benefits; to protect the public rights, interests and investments in such lands; and to compensate the counties for the public uses, benefits and privileges these lands provide; all in a manner which will provide a reasonable revenue to the towns in which such lands lie. This layer was created to provide a more accurate representation of county forests beyond simply identifying PLSS quarter-quarter sections containing County Forests. The “PLSS method” of representation may overlap private or other ownership types.

This GIS layer was created by dissolving managed stand information from the WisFIRS Public Lands Management application. Stands coded as private (998 = inholding) or non-DNR (999, 9999 = non-DNR, Fed, etc.) were removed from the dissolve. The layer used to create this data is continually edited.

Contact Person(s):

GIS contact Laura Waddle, DNR-IT, (608) 320-4648, Laura.Waddle@Wisconsin.gov

Program contact Doug Brown, Forestry Field Operations, (715) 966-0157, Douglas.Brown@wisconsin.gov

Update Frequency:

Annual. Edits to County Forest stand information in WisFIRS used to generate the county forest feature class may occur at any time during the year; however we will compile this layer annually. The GIS layer was last updated on September 20, 2021.

Projection:

NAD_1983_HARN_Wisconsin_TM (Meters)

WKID: 3071 Authority: EPSG

Projection: Transverse_Mercator

False_Easting: 520000.0

False_Northing: -4480000.0

Central_Meridian: -90.0

Scale_Factor: 0.9996

Latitude_Of_Origin: 0.0

Linear Unit: Meter (1.0)

SHAPEFILE ATTRIBUTES

FIELD NAME	TYPE	LENGTH	FORMAT	EXAMPLE
FR_PROP_CO	N	4	Short Integer	200
PROP_NAME	T	50	Text	Waushara County Forest
CHANGE_DT	D	8	Date	11/20/2012
CHANGE_BY	T	30	Text	klausc
COLL_CODE	T	6	Text	OTH001
COLL_TEXT	T	254	Text	Dissolved from WisFIRS

FR_PROP_CO: Forestry Property Code assigned by DNR Forestry.

PROP_NAME: Name of the property. Usually “County Name” County Forest

CHANGE_DT: Date of most data update.

CHANGE_BY: Name of person to do most recent data update.

COLL_CODE:Collection method code.

Value Definition

OTH001 Other collection method.

COLL_TEXT: Description of collection method.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For more information on the Wisconsin County Forests program, refer to the official website: https://www.wisconsincountyforests.com/

User Advisory:

The completed treatments data in WisFIRS may not be entirely complete. Most treatments completed in the field have been entered into WisFIRS; however, there are some treatments that have not been recorded as completed in WisFIRS - particularly those implemented prior to October 2014. Additionally, not all treatments that have been completed in WisFIRS as tabular records of completed treatments have been mapped spatially in the WisFIRS GIS application – particularly those implemented prior to October 2014. Overall most completed treatments have been recorded and mapped, but it is important to recognize that there are treatments that have not been accounted for in WisFIRS.

Neither the Department of Natural Resources nor any of its employees shall be held liable for any improper or incorrect use of the information described and/or contained herein and assumes no responsibility for anyone's use of the information. Furthermore, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability, or usefulness of any information. The Department provides this information on an "as is" basis. The Department has made reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information but cannot exclude the possibility of errors or omissions in sources or of changes in actual conditions. Changes may be periodically made to the information herein; these changes may or may not be incorporated in any new version of the data. If you have obtained information from the Department from a source other than the Department, be aware that electronic data can be altered subsequent to original distribution. Data can also quickly become out-of-date. It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of all data, and that the originator of the data or information be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use.