Treesearch

Managing forests for nontimber objectives such as habitat for threatened or endangered species, water quality, recreational opportunities, aesthetic features, and other outputs need not preclude production of wood products. In fact, removal of some trees is often necessary to accomplish these nontimber objectives. The trees selected fro removal are, however, typically smaller (6-10 inches at breast height), than have historically been offered for sale by public landowners in the western United States. This paper reports work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific...

This work describes climate means and trends in each of three major ecological zones and 13 ecological reporting units in the interior Columbia River basin. Widely differing climates help define each major zone and reporting unit, the pattern of which is controlled by three competing air masses: marine, continental, and arctic. Paleoclimatic evidence and historical weather records show that the region has undergone significant fluctuations in temperature and precipitation as air masses alternate dominance over the basin. The major change in climate occurred near the time of western...

Measures of socioeconomic resiliency were developed for the 100 counties studied in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. These measures can be used for understanding the extent to which changes in policies for management of Federal lands may affect socioeconomic systems coincident with those lands. Sixty-seven percent of the basin’s residents live in areas of high resiliency; these represent only 20 percent of the land base. Whereas 68 percent of the land base has low socioeconomic resiliency, only 18 percent of the people live in those areas. These findings allow land...

An assessment of existing and potential impacts to vegetation, aquatics, and visibility within the Columbia River basin due to air pollution was conducted as part of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. This assessment examined the current situation and potential trends due to pollutants such as ammonium, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulates, carbon, and ozone. Ecosystems and resources at risk are identified, including certain forests, lichens, cryptogamic crusts, high elevation lakes and streams, arid lands, and class I areas. Current monitoring data are...

The heavy focus on Pacific Northwest saw-log prices makes it difficult for land managers to develop price expectations for stands that contain both sawtimber and nonsawtimber logs. This raises the question: What is a reasonable proxy (or measure) for nonsawtimber prices in the Pacific Northwest? One such proxy is export chip prices, which serve as a reasonable measure of value in three ways. First, they reflect the underlying trends in all chip markets. Second, they reflect expected patterns of market arbitrage. Third, they help to explain seasonality and cyclical variation in the chip market.

Lightning is the primary cause of fire in the forested regions of the Pacific Northwest, especially when it occurs without significant precipitation at the surface. Using thunderstorm occurrence and precipitation observations for the period 1948–77, along with automated lightning strike data for the period 1986–96, it was possible to classify convective days as either "dry" or "wet" for several stations in the Pacific Northwest. Based on the classification, a discriminant analysis was performed on coincident upper-air sounding data from Spokane, Washington. It was found that a discriminant...

Two general approaches for measuring the economic base are discussed. Each method is used to define the economic base for each of the counties included in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project area. A more detailed look at four selected counties results in similar findings from different approaches. Limitations of economic base analysis also are noted.

I studied the landscape dynamics, organization, and productivity of a toll-grass and riverine forest mosaic in the eastern portion of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Aerial photograph interpretation, releve sampling, experimental plots, models, and foraging studies were done. A model of landscape dynamics showed that fluvia1 action controlled landscape organization. Ten grasslands and three forest associations were identified on edaphic and successional gradients. Aboveground net primary production appears to be among the highest in the world. Large herbivore consumption was estimated at 6%...

Declining health of forest ecosystems in the interior West has been the subject of much study, concern and controversy in recent years (e.g., Everett et al. 1994, Harvey et al. 1995, Lehmkuhl et al. 1994, O'Laughlin et al. 1993, Wickman 1992). Land-use practices of this century have altered disturbance regimes and spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation, and reduced ecosystem resilience to native and human disturbances. Concern for "declining forest health" centers around the human perception is founded on a widely held social value that forest (and rangeland) ecosystems ought to...

Although the spotted owl's close association with old growth has been extensively studied, it more difficult to identify and quantify the abundance of particular stand structures associated with preferred owl foraging sites. Old-growth forests have a suite of characteristics that distinguish them from younger forests but which also make it difficult to isolate individual structural features important to the spotted owl. This study used an analysis of use-only sites in areas where natural disturbance had created a gradient of old-growth structural characteristics. We used radio telemetry...