Treesearch

The hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand) (HWA) is an invasive insect pest that is causing widespread mortality of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.). However, some stands remain living more than a decade after infestation. The ability to target management efforts in locations where hemlock is most likely to tolerate prolonged HWA infestation is critical to successful integrated pestmanagement programs. Here, we build a landscape-scale hemlock risk model for the Catskills region of New York based on coverage like slope and aspect derived from a traditional Digital...

The Aquatic Multiscale Assessment and Planning Framework is a Web-based decision-support tool developed to assist aquatic practitioners in managing fisheries and watershed information. This tool, or framework, was designed to assist resource assessments and planning efforts from the broad scale to the fine scale, to document procedures, and to link directly to relevant research. The framework is a hierarchical, hyperlinked template that is readily updateable. For aquatic resources in a planning area, such as those occupied by salmonid fishes, the framework produces tabular and spatial...

Traditionally, natural resource managers have asked the question, “How much?” and have received sample-based estimates of resource totals or means. Increasingly, however, the same managers are now asking the additional question, “Where?” and are expecting spatially explicit answers in the form of maps. Recent development of natural resource databases, access to satellite imagery, development of image classification techniques, and availability of geographic information systems has facilitated construction and analysis of the required maps. Unfortunately, methods for estimating the uncertain...

Historically, U.S. forests have been invaded by a variety of nonindigenous insects and pathogens. Some of these pests have catastrophically impacted important species over a relatively short timeframe. To curtail future changes of this magnitude, agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service have devoted substantial resources to assessing the risks associated with recent or potential forest invaders. These assessments of risk typically include a mapping component; among other things, this presents a useful way to organize early-detection/rapid-response procedures....

The construction of the 2006 National Insect and Disease Risk Map, compiled by the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry Area, Forest Health Protection Unit, resulted in the development of a GIS-based, multicriteria approach for insect and disease risk mapping that can account for regional variations in forest health concerns and threats. This risk mapping framework, used by all nine Forest Service regions and 49 States, provides a consistent, repeatable, transparent process through which interactive spatial and temporal risk assessments can be conducted at various levels to aid...

Invasive species management is closely entwined with the assessment and management of risk that arises from the inherently random nature of the invasion process. The theory and application of risk management for invasive species with an economic perspective is reviewed in this synthesis. Invasive species management can be delineated into three general categories: exclusion, detection, and control. Key ideas and approaches in current literature and potential applications of existing theory are presented in this synthesis. Economic literature tends to emphasize either individual management...

Current information on broad-scale climatic conditions is essential for assessing potential distribution of forest pests. At present, sophisticated spatial interpolation approaches such as the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) are used to create high-resolution climatic data sets. Unfortunately, these data sets are based on 30-year normals and rarely incorporate up-to-date data. Furthermore, because they are constructed on a monthly rather than a daily time step, they do not directly measure simultaneous occurrence of multiple climatic conditions (e.g.,...

Building probabilistic risk models for highly random forest disturbances like wildfire and forest insect outbreaks is a challenging. Modeling the interactions among natural disturbances is even more difficult. In the case of wildfire and forest insects, we looked at the probability of a large fire given an insect outbreak and also the incidence of insect outbreaks following wildfire. We developed and used a probabilistic model framework for estimating (1) the probability that a wildfire, at a given location and time, reaches a given size class under the conditions at the site—including...

There is a need to provide agency leaders, elected officials, and the general public with summary information regarding the effects of large wildfires. Recently, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), which implements and coordinates National Fire Plan (NFP) and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies adopted a strategy to monitor the effectiveness and effects of the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. One component of this strategy is to assess the environmental impacts of large wildland fires and identify the trends of burn severity on all lands across the...

Making complex risk-related decisions involves a degree of uncertainty. How that uncertainty is addressed or presented in reports or data tables can be tailored to meet information users’ needs and preferences. Involving the recipients of risk-related information in the design of information to be delivered (including the types of information delivered, format, and approach to risk) follows Fischoff’s (1995) recommendation for involving the recipients of risk information in the crafting of the risk message. Here, we describe a study conducted with people who use risk-related information....