The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978, As Amended Through 2008, Section 8, [16 U.S.C. 2104] FOREST HEALTH PROTECTION, authorizes the Forest Service to "conduct surveys to detect and appraise insect infestations and disease conditions and man-made stresses affecting trees and establish a monitoring system throughout the forests of the United States to determine detrimental changes or improvements that occur over time, and report annually concerning such surveys and monitoring".

Detection surveys are the primary method of collecting data on the health of treed areas affected by insects and diseases. This process involves conducting annual aerial and ground surveys using the following systems: Digital Mobile Sketch Mapping (DMSM), Southern Pine Beetle (SPB) Collector Map and Thousand Cankers Disease (TCD) Survey Maps. Geospatial data collected with these systems is stored in a National Insect and Disease Survey (IDS) database.Various products are available for download below including National Insect and Disease Detection Survey Maps, IDS Geospatial Data , and IDS Acre Summaries. The annual Detection surveys data is also used to produce Forest Insect and Disease Conditions in the United States reports and National Forest Health Conditions & Highlights Interactive Story Maps.

Detection surveys are an efficient and economical method of collecting and reporting data on forest insects, diseases, and other disturbances across State, Private and Federal lands. FHAAST supports cooperating users and Forest Service Regions each field season with detection surveys. Cooperators are the key to ensuring consistent coverage and quality of the detection data