Treesearch

About two-thirds (504 million acres) of the Nation’s forests are classed as timberland, productive forests capable of producing 20 cubic feet per acre of industrial wood annually and not legally reserved from timber harvest. The USDA’s 1997 National Resource Inventory shows that, nationally, 11 million acres of forest, cropland, and open space were converted to urban and other developed uses from 1992 to 1997, as the national rate of urbanization increased notably compared to the 1982-92 period. Forest land was the largest source of land converted to developed uses such as urbanization....

Horse Rock Ridge Research Natural Area (HRR RNA) was established in June 1995 to protect the best remaining example of a grassy “bald” (treeless area) on the western margin of the Cascade Range and its associated botanical, wildlife, and scenic values. This bald is surrounded by old-growth Pseudotsuga menziesii/Tsuga heterophylla (Douglas-fir/western hemlock) forest in the Coburg Hills on the eastern edge of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. The site is recognized for its considerable diversity of plant species that includes both Willamette Valley plants as well as plants more often...

Understanding of the effects of wildland fire and fire management on aquatic and riparian ecosystems is an evolving field, with many questions still to be resolved. Limitations of current knowledge, and the certainty that fire management will continue, underscore the need to summarize available information. Integrating fire and fuels management with aquatic ecosystem conservation begins with recognizing that terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are linked and dynamic, and that fire can play a critical role in maintaining aquatic ecological diversity. To protect aquatic ecosystems we argue...

The US has a century of experience with the development of forest policies that have benefited from or been influenced by economic research activities in the forest sector. At the same time, increasing rigor in policy debates stimulated economics research. During the past four decades economic research has evolved to include increased understanding of consumer demands, producer behavior, landowner behavior and timber resource conditions. Bioeconomic models have evolved that combine economic and resource models; these have been used in the US to provide the basis for forecasting future...

Three-dimensional (3-D) forest structure information is critical to support a variety of ecosystem management objectives on the Fort Lewis Military Reservation, including habitat assessment, ecological restoration, fire management, and commercial timber harvest. In particular, the Forestry Program at Fort Lewis requires measurements of shrub, understory, and overstory canopy cover to monitor vegetation response to various management approaches. At present, these measurements are acquired through field-based procedures, which are relatively costly and time-consuming. The use of remotely...

Field, laboratory, and historical data provide the basis for interpreting the effects of the Pelton-Round Butte dam complex on the surface water hydrology and geomorphology of the lower Deschutes River, Oregon, USA. The river's response to upstream impoundment and flow regulation is evaluated in terms of changes in predicted bedload transport rates, channel morphology, and channel-bed texture. Using a hydraulic model, we predicted discharges between 270 and 460 m3/s would be required to initiate bedload transport. Analysis of morphologic change at a long-term cross-section showed general...

The frequency and size of epicormic sprouts in Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carr.) were assessed in five 23-29 year-old mixed Sitka spruce-western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.) stands that were uniformly thinned and pruned to 2.4, 3.7 and 5.2 m lift heights. Six to nine years after treatment sprouts were very common with 232 of 236 trees producing sprouts and an average of 9-11 sprouts m-1 of tree bole. The total numbers of sprouts were similar for the different pruning treatments but significantly more large sprouts (P = 0.025) were produced in the 5.2 m pruning...

Forest clearcutting has been the primary timber management practice in forests of southeastern Alaska since commercial timber harvesting began in the 1950s, and the dense, even-aged conifer stands that subsequently developed have broad and undesirable consequences for some nontimber resources-most notably, fish and wildlife. Because a few earlier reports suggested that red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) helps mitigate some negative effects of timber harvesting (Deal 1997, Wipfli 1997, Hanley and Barnard 1998), we studied the influence of red alder on a broad set of nontimber resources in young...

Alaska birch lumber has a higher occurrence of defects (knots, bark pockets, flecks, spalting, etc.) when compared to competing hardwoods. These defects are a disadvantage when birch lumber is graded under standard National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA) grading rules. This paper examines whether defects and other character markings found in birch lumber may be an advantage for certain applications. Contingent valuation techniques are used to determine the willingness of consumers to pay a price premium for kitchen cabinet doors made from Alaska birch lumber containing a variety of...

Economists increasingly face opportunities to collaborate with ecologists on landscape-level analyses of socioeconomic and ecological processes. This often calls for developing empirical models to project land use change as input into ecological models. Providing ecologists with the land use information they desire can present many challenges regarding data, modeling, and econometrics. This paper provides an overview of the relatively recent adaptation of economics-based land use modeling methods toward greater spatial specificity desired in integrated research with ecologists. Practical...