Treesearch

This report characterizes smoke emissions from small-scale prescribed burns in southern California chaparral. In situ measurements of smoke emissions were made from 12 fires. Three replicate tests were performed in each of four distinct fuel and fire treatments common to vegetation management operations: a young and rigorous chamise-dominated stand; an old and decadent chamise-dominated stand; an old chamise-dominated stand after crushing; and a stand consisting mainly of old ceanothus. Emission factors for total particulate matter, particulate matter 10 micrograms in size and less,...

Damage from a dormant-season windstorm in a 3-year-old Populus research trial differed among four clones and three spacings and between monoclonal and polyclonal plots. Clonal differences in susceptibility to toppling (or leaning) were associated with both above and below-ground characteristics. Susceptible clones had less taper in the lower stem and more weight in branches on the upper stem. The most susceptible clone also had the most above-ground biomass per unit of cross-sectional root area. The other susceptible clone had the least root system development in the windward quadrants....

This bibliography lists literature dealing with the concept of community stability, the condition of forest-based communities, and the relations between forest management and local community conditions. Most citations are from the 1970s to the mid 1990s, though some particularly pertinent earlier works also appear. The emphasis is on forest-based communities in the Pacific Northwest, but citations from across the United States and other industrialized nations, such as Canada, New Zealand, and the Scandinavian countries, also are included.

Recreation in the Pacific Northwest is a valuable resource. A method is described that translates recreation on USDA Forest Service and U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management lands in northern California, western Oregon, and western Washington into economic value. By assigning recreation to land use type (using the Forest Service recreation opportunity spectrum classification), the economic value associated with various land use changes can be identified. Results indicated that those land use changes resulting in more nonroaded recreational opportunities provide the greatest...

The conservation status of northern goshawks in southeast Alaska is examined through developing an understanding of goshawk ecology in relation to past, present, and potential future habitat conditions in the region under the current Tongass land management plan. Forest ecosystem dynamics are described, and a history of forest and goshawk management in the Tongass National Forest is reviewed. Nearly 900,000 acres of the most productive old-growth temperate rain forest in southeast Alaska (public and private lands) have been harvested during the past 90 years and changed to early seral...

A variety of county data have been assembled in support of the Interior Columbia River Basin Ecosystem Management Project. This research note is an effort to make some of the basic demographic and economic data available to the public for the counties involved in the assessment.

Larval densities of the western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman) were monitored for 12 years (1984-95) on permanent sample plots in northeastern Oregon. The time series spanned a period of general budworm infestations when populations increased rapidly from low densities, plateaued for a time at high-outbreak densities, and then declined suddenly. Midway through the period (1988), an area with half of the sample plots was sprayed with the microbial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.) in an operational suppression project. The other sample plots were part of an...

Management of ecosystems requires projecting the human population for a biologically significant timeframe, because the impacts of potential alternative ecosystem management strategies will differ depending on the size, location, and expectations of the human population. Increases since 1990 in the net migration rates are changing the expectations for projections of population in the interior Columbia River basin. We present two population projections: low and high. The low projections are from U.S. Bureau of the Census sources and essentially assume little net migration, which is generally...

Deterioration of fire-killed timber in the coastal mountains of southern Oregon and northern California was monitored over a 3 yr period (1988-1990). Defect was identified and measured on felled and bucked sample trees by using Scribner and cubic scaling rules. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), grand fir (Abies grandis), white fir (A. concolor), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), and sugarpine (Pinus lambertiana), covering a wide range of geographic areas, site conditions, and tree size and age, were studied. One year afer death, Douglas-fir, sugarpine, and ponderosa pine had lost about...

A grid sampling strategy was adopted for broad-scale inventory and monitoring of forest and range vegetation on National Forest System lands in the Pacific North-west Region, USDA Forest Service. This paper documents the technical details of the adopted design and discusses alternative sampling designs that were considered. A less technical description of the selected design will be given elsewhere. The grid consists of a regular, square spacing with 5.47 kilometers (3.4 mi) between grid points. The primary sampling unit (PSU), established at each grid sampling point, consists of a...