Treesearch

Thirty-meter digital elevation models (DEMs) produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are widely available and commonly used in analyzing aquatic systems. However, these DEMs are of relatively coarse resolution, were inconsistently produced (i.e., Level 1 versus Level 2 DEMs), and lack drainage enforcement. Such issues may hamper efforts to accurately model streams, delineate hydrologic units (HUs), and classify slope. Thus, the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS) compared streams, HUs, and slope classes generated from sample 10-meter DEMs. We found that (1) drainage...

Forest management that seeks compatible production opportunities across several forest resources is the essence of compatible forest management. Most landowners and many land managers are keenly aware that their management actions produce a range of goods or services that contributes to both their personal prosperity and to societal well-being. It is this diversity of ownerships—each with different management objectives—that has a positive influence on compatibility when considered at the landscape scale.

Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest and Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed are located in the boreal forest of interior Alaska. Research focuses on basic ecological processes, hydrology, disturbance regimes, and climate change in the boreal forest region. Interior Alaska lies between the Alaska Range to the south and the Brooks Range to the north and covers an area of 170,000 square miles—more than the states of Oregon and Washington combined. The 12,486-acre Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest is about 20 miles southwest of Fairbanks. The experimental forest was established in 1963 on...

Buffers along streams cover a tremendous proportion of the land base in the forested systems of the western Pacific Northwest. These buffers were designated primarily to conserve and restore habitat for salmon and trout, but conservation of habitat for a number of other organisms also has been implicit in their design. Recent research evaluated the importance of buffers in providing habitat for other vertebrates, especially amphibians, whose decreasing numbers are raising concerns worldwide. Riparian buffers constrain management options along streams and encumber trees that might otherwise...

The Cost plus Net Value Change (C+NVC) model provides the theoretical foundation for wildland fire economics and provides the basis for the National Fire Management Analysis System (NFMAS). The C+NVC model is based on the earlier least Cost plus Loss model (LC+L) expressed by Sparhawk (1925). Mathematical and graphical analysis of the LC+L model illustrates two errors in model formulation. First, suppression is incorrectly modeled as a model output. Second, suppression and primary protection are incorrectly modeled as negatively correlated. These errors are shown to be perpetuated by the...

Phase 1I of the Scientific Data Purchase (SDP) has provided NASA investigators access to data from four different satellite and airborne data sources. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) land discipline team (MODLAND) sought to utilize these data in support of land product validation activities with a lbcus on tile EOS Land Validation Core Sites. These sites provide a globally distributed network of sites where field, aircraft, and satellite data are being collected. As much as possible, uniform data sets useful for validation are being made available for the core sites....

This guidebook describes the Carolyn's Crown/Shafer Creek Research Natural Area, a 323-ha (798-ac) tract of coniferous forest containing stands of 600- to 900-year-old old-growth Douglas-fir along the transition between the western hemlock zone and the silver fir zone in the Cascade Range in western Oregon.

During the last two decades, the chanterelle mushroom harvest from Pacific Northwest forests has become a multimillion dollar industry, yet managers, harvesters, and scientists lack a current synthesis of information about chanterelles. We define chanterelles and then discuss North American species, their place among chanterelle species around the world, international markets for chanterelles, our current understanding of the organism, reasons for declining production in parts of Europe, and efforts to cultivate chanterelles. Shifting focus back to chanterelles of the Pacific Northwest, we...

The morphology of the Deschutes River canyon downstream of the Pelton-Round Butte dam complex is the product of the regional geologic history, the composition of the geologic units that compose the valley walls, and Quaternary processes and events. Geologic units within the valley walls and regional deformation patterns control overall valley morphology. Valley bottom morphology is mostly the result of Quaternary events. These include several large landslides, which have caused retreat of the canyon rims but have also constricted the valley bottom with immense volumes of debris. In at...

The work responds to the need to assess progress toward sustainable forest management as established by the Montréal Process of Criteria and Indicators. The focus is on a single indicator (commonly referred to as Indicator 46), which addresses the “viability and adaptability to changing economic conditions, of forest-dependent communities, including indigenous communities.” From county-level data, a composite measure was developed that combined population density, lifestyle diversity, and economic resiliency. There are 837 counties assigned a low rating representing 36 percent of the area...