Extreme Drought in Mississippi Claims 12.5 Million Trees, Survey by Mississippi Forest Commission Finds

A preliminary survey on pine mortality released by the Mississippi Forestry Commission (MFC) shows that extreme drought conditions in Mississippi have killed approximately 12.5 million trees across 80,000 acres, The Daily Leader reported on Tuesday.

The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service helped MFC conduct the survey through the Southern Research Station looking at an area of 13,010,098 acres, of which 2,500,000 acres were made up of pine trees. Drought causes stress on the trees, and it is likely beetles—such as the southern pine beetle and Ips beetle—attacking the weakened trees that kills them.

MFC Forest Health Commissioner Garron Hicks told The Daily Leader that the survey looked at 811,111 locations reflecting pine decline, which were extracted from remote sensing analysis from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. Spots range in size from .02 acres to 72 acres, with the majority of spots less than 20 acres. The average spot was 0.1 acre.

The MFC has determined that the survey had a 96% confidence level by looking at the ground truth imagery of 150 random points. Hicks stated that they adjusted total acreage affected from 80,415,33 using the 0.04% error to 78,988.3 acres of mortality.

The Mississippi counties of Lincoln and Franklin County appear to be at the epicenter of the outbreak. Homochitto National Forest Land is one of the hardest hit. “This is primarily due to the high amount of pine forest within the National Forest and the long duration of drought conditions in that area,” Hicks said.

As of last week, regions of Northwest Lincoln County and eastern Franklin County were still abnormally dry according to the National Drought Monitor Center. Western Franklin County is still considered to be in a moderate drought.

Hicks said the acreage impacted by the drought is growing little by little each day. It is likely there will be more updates to the survey over the next year. “We will continue to use updated satellite imagery as it becomes available to get better information and assist landowners in reforestation efforts,” Hicks told The Daily Leader.