Department of Forestry Natural Resource Economics and Social Sciences

Ongoing research

• Interstate and interregional reliance on wood products 
• Impact of forest carbon programs on wood product industry
• Supply and Demand of timber for Mass Timber in Midwest and Southern US
• Impact of Covid on US forest product industry
• Identifying locations for expanded, reactivated, and new facilities to support wildfire risk mitigation
• Estimating avoided fossil emissions from substitution of wood energy for fossil energy and wood products for non-wood materials in buildings.
• Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of hardwood lumber manufacturing facility 
• Forest Carbon support tool 
• Biochar Network
• Survey of Logging Businesses in Michigan
• Product and Carbon Traceability Throughout the Wood Products Supply Chain
• Economic Contribution of Biomass power plants in northeastern and Midwest region.
• Restoration of Mesic forests in North America

Recently competed 

• Economic Tradeoffs in Timber Products Under Various Carbon Management Strategies
• Climate Literacy, Training, and Assistance
• Low value wood and slash (feedstock) availability for biochar production 
• Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of biochar production 
• Building Woodshed maps (procurement zones) using wood products market
• Biomass (feedstock) availability for a bioenergy powerplants in Michigan
• Analysis of location, feedstock availability, and economic contributions of a mass timber manufacturing plant in Michigan
• Forest Carbon Inventory and Modeling Needs Assessment

Journal Articles

Please contact the Raju Pokharel if you need any of the following publications. 

• Van Sandt A., Pokharel R., Carpenter C.W., & Loveridge S. (2024). Locational Determinants and Data Issues in the Wood Products Supply Chain. Forest Policy and Economics, 167 (103303).
• Khanal N., Pokharel R., Poudel J., Gc S., Shannon E., Huff E.S., Finley A. (2024). Analysis of location, feedstock availability, and economic impacts of potential mass timber processing facilities in Michigan. Forest Policy and Economics, 163, 103203.
• Gc S., Thapa I., Pokharel R., Alward G., Lamsal B., Poudel J. Dahal R.P., Joshi O., Parajuli R., Wagner J., & Leefers L (2024). A Methodological Framework for Decomposing the Value-Chain Economic Contribution: A Case of Forest Resource Industries of the Lake States in the United States. Forests, 15(2), 305.
• Gc, S., Potter-Witter, K., Pokharel, R., Leefers, L., Norris, P., & Huff, E.S., (2023). Assessing the wood-basket and characterizing Michigan’s logging businesses by their reliance on nonindustrial private forests for stumpage. Forest Policy and Economics, 156, 103067. 
• Pokharel R., Latta G.S., & Washington C. (2023). Forest Biomass Feedstock Availability and Economic Contribution of Biopower Facilities in the Lake States Region, Journal of Forestry, 121(5-6), 393-407.
• Pokharel R., Latta G.S., & Ohrel S.B. (2023.) Estimating climate-sensitive wildfire risk and tree mortality models for use in broad-scale U.S. forest carbon projections. Forests, 14, 234/5(1-21). (This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling National and Global Forest Product Markets and Trade edited by Dr. Prakash Nepal and Dr. Jesse Henderson from USDA Forest Service, Dr. Franziska Schier from Thuenen Institute of Forestry, Germany, and Dr. Jinggang Guo from Louisiana State University) [Raster maps available from Data and Tools]
• Pokharel R., Latta G.S., & Washington C. (2023). Identifying Economically Feasible Priority Landscape Areas in Idaho for Funding Assistance Programs, Journal of Forestry, 121 (2), 145-156. 
• Visser L., Latta G.S., Pokharel R., Hoefnagelsa R. & Jungingera M. (2022). Exploring limits to sustainable pellet production for international markets - The impact of increasing pellet production in the U.S. Southeast on feedstock use, costs and carbon sequestration in forest areas, GCB Bioenergy, 14(8), 896-917. 
• Poudel J. & Pokharel R. (2021). Financial Analysis of Habitat Conservation Banking in the United States. Sustainability, 13(22), 12441.
• Pokharel R., & Latta G.S. (2020). A network analysis to identify forest merchantability limitations across the United States, Forest Policy and Economics, 116 (102181).
• Pokharel R., Grala R. K., Latta G.S., Grebner D. L., Grado S. C., & Poudel J., (2019). Availability of logging residues and the likelihood of their utilization for electricity production in the US South, Journal of Forestry, 117(6), 543-559.
• Pokharel R., Grala R.K., Grebner D.L., & Cooke W.H. (2019). Mill willingness to utilize logging residues to produce electricity: a spatial logistic regression approach, Forest Science, 65(3), 277-288.
• Pokharel R., Poudel J., Adhikari R., & Sharma A. (2018). Demand and Supply of Forest Products in Bandevi Buffer Zone Community Forest, Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Sustainability in Environment, 3(4), 305–328.
• Pokharel R., Poudel J., & Grala, R.K. (2018). Impact of economic factors and a political conflict on international tourism demand in Nepal: A vector error correction model. International Journal of Tourism Policy 8(1), 18–41.
• Pokharel R., Grala R. K., & Grebner D. L. (2017). Woody residues utilization for bioenergy by primary forest products manufacturers: An exploratory analysis, Forest Policy and Economics, 85 Part 1, 161-171.
• Pokharel R., Grala R. K., Grebner D. L., & Grado S. C. (2017). Factors affecting utilization of woody residues to produce bioenergy in the southern United States, Biomass and Bioenergy, 105, 278–287.
• Adhikari R.K., Kindu M., Pokharel R., Castro L.M., & Knoke, T. (2017). Financial compensation for biodiversity conservation in Ba Be National Park of Northern Vietnam. Journal for Nature Conservation 35, 92–100.