Treesearch

Summaries and conclusions of each chapter are compiled here to provide a “Quick Reference” guide of major results and recommendations for the UVR. More detail can be obtained from individual chapters.

The main information sources for the UVR consist of several web sites with general information and bibliographies. RMRS has publications on its Air, Water, Aquatic Environments (AWAE) Program Flagstaff web site. Another RMRS and University of Arizona website on semi-arid and arid watersheds contains a large, searchable bibliography of supporting information from the Beaver Creek watersheds, in the Middle Verde River area. The Verde Watershed Association has a website on the river and normally supports a bibliography of publications. Northern Arizona University also supports several...

The UVR area of north-central Arizona overlaps the Central Highlands and the Plateau Uplands biogeographic provinces. The UVR area occupies about 6,700 km2 (2,600 mi2) of Yavapai and Coconino Counties (fig. 1.1), and its watershed encompasses the northern valley of the Verde River bounded by the escarpment of the Mogollon Rim to the north and northeast and by the Black Hills to the southwest. The Mogollon Rim escarpment is the boundary between the Plateau uplands province and the Central highlands province. It is a steeply sloping cliff that rises 310 to 610 m (1,000 to 2,000 ft) from the...

In addition to being one of the primary drivers of the net terrestrial carbon budget, forest disturbance also plays a critical role in regulating the surface energy balance, promoting biodiversity, and creating wildlife habitat. With climate change and an ever growing human population poised to alter the frequency and severity of disturbance regimes across the globe, improved monitoring of forest disturbance, especially at the landscape scale has taken on renewed importance. Because forest disturbance manifests at a variety of spatial and temporal scales and has varying impacts which...

The UVR corridor is a diverse riverine ecosystem in central Arizona (see Chapter 1). Since European settlement, it has witnessed many events such as droughts, floods, construction of Sullivan Dam, groundwater withdrawals, cattle grazing, mining, nonnative fish introductions, native fish extinctions, and urbanization that are not fully understood. Geologically, the UVR displays a wide array of formations of spectacular color and variety; the landscapes vary from open valleys to narrow and deep canyons. Several publications have described the Verde River (Wirt and Hjalmarson 2000; Blasch and...

The Central Arizona Highlands are a distinct biogeographic, climatic, and physiographic province that forms a diverse ecotone between the more extensive Colorado Plateau to the north and the Sonoran Desert ecoregions to the south (Ffolliott 1999). The Highlands coincide closely to the Arizona Transition Zone identified by ecologists, geologists, and others (Karlstrom and Bowring 1988; Hendricks and Plescia 1991; Ezzo and Price 2002). The Central Arizona Highlands have been the focus of a wide range of research efforts designed to learn more about the effects of natural and human-induced...

Managers of the Prescott National Forest are obliged to evaluate the conditions of watersheds under their jurisdiction in order to guide informed decisions concerning grazing allotments, forest and woodland management, restoration treatments, and other management initiatives. Watershed condition has been delineated by contrasts between “good” and “poor” conditions (DeBano and Schmidt 1989). Good condition is characterized by vegetation and litter cover that is capable of absorbing precipitation, temporarily storing it, and slowly releasing it through a network of channels with minimal...

Species distribution models for 147 bird species have been derived using climate, elevation, and distribution of current tree species as potential predictors (Matthews et al. 2011). In this case study, a risk matrix was developed for two bird species (fig. A2-5), with projected change in bird habitat (the x axis) based on models of changing suitable habitat resulting from changing climate and tree species habitat. Risk was evaluated for three time steps (2040, 2070, 2100) and based on two climate models and two emission scenarios (Hadhi vs. PCMlo).

Currently in its third phase, the North American Forest Dynamics (NAFD) project has launched nationwide processing of historic Landsat data to provide a comprehensive annual, wall-to-wall analysis of U.S. disturbance history over the last 30+ years. Because understanding the cause of disturbance is important to quantifying carbon dynamics, work is underway to attribute causal agents to these nationwide change maps. Developing empirical models of the diverse causal agents in this country involves many decisions. Alternative response designs (such as varying size, shape, quantity, and level...

Alaskan forests cover one-third of the state’s 52 million ha of land (Parson et al. 2001), and are regionally and globally significant. Ninety percent of Alaskan forests are classified as boreal, representing 4 percent of the world’s boreal forests, and are located throughout interior and south-central Alaska (fig. A1-1). The remaining 10 percent of Alaskan forests are classified as coastal-temperate, representing 19 percent of the world’s coastal-temperate forests (National Synthesis Assessment Team 2003), and are located in southeast Alaska (fig. A1-1). Regional changes in the disturbance...