Treesearch

Sustaining healthy, ecologically functional, and economically viable forests is an increasing challenge in Maryland due to relentless urban development. Forests that once occupied more than 90 percent of Maryland’s landscape today cover only 41 percent of the land. As forests become more fragmented and parcelized they begin to lose their ability to provide important ecological, social, and economic benefits. This paper excerpts the publication “Maryland’s Strategic Forest Lands Assessment” which highlights the use of indicators to analyze forest sustainability and multi-variate GIS-based...

Tropical dry forests in Mexico are an outstanding natural resource, due to the large surface area they cover. This ecosystem can be found from Baja California Norte to Chiapas on the eastern coast of the country. On the Gulf of Mexico side it grows from Tamaulipas to Yucatan. This is an ecosystem that is home to a wide diversity of plants, which include 114 tree species. These species lose their leaves for long periods of time during the year. This plant community prospers at altitudes varying from sea level up to 1700 meters, in a wide range of soil conditions. Studies regarding land...

Characterization of tree crown structure provides critical information to assess a variety of ecological conditions for multiple purposes and applications. For biomass growth, for example, tree crowns have basic physiological functions: assimilation, respiration, and transpiration. How tree crowns spatially interact and grow can bring about a seamless landscape of unique features and microclimatic conditions that are highly relevant to biological diversity, soil processes, productivity, wildlife habitats, ecosystem health and sustainability. Approaches to measuring tree crown structure and...

Global crop condition information for major agricultural regions in the world can be monitored using the web-based application called Crop Explorer. With this application, U.S. and international producers, traders, researchers, and the public can access remote sensing information used by agricultural economists and scientists who predict crop production worldwide. For example, regional droughts or excessively wet conditions can be identified in thematic maps by the amount of ground-surface “greenness” depicted by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Crop Explorer automates...

The Central Hardwood Region is a unique forest region in the United States, encompassing 340 million acres of land, of which 100 million acres are forested (Parker 1993). The region contains one-fourth of the U.S. population, with approximately 90 percent of the land in private ownership (Parker 1993). In general, private forested lands in the Central Hardwood Region tend to be small, non-industrial forests with little forest management (Nyland 1992). The tendency of non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners to eschew professional guidance when managing their forests is cause for...

The U.S. Forest Service manages approximately 76 million ha (191 million acres) of National Forest System (NFS) lands. The National Forest Management Act (1976) recognizes the importance of maintaining species and ecosystem diversity on NFS lands as a critical component of our ecological and cultural heritage. Information on the condition of populations and habitats of plants and animals is a primary tool for determining desired conditions, understanding potential conflicts in multiple use objectives in the context of sustainability, and formulating management direction to achieve these...

The National Atmospheric Monitoring Program (Programa Nacional de Monitoreo Atmosférico - PNMA) is the answer to one of the main priorities of Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) for its linkage to other sectors of the administration. Under a transversal scheme, this program proposes to create links with the various municipalities and Mexican States that currently have air quality monitoring systems, as well as with other branches of the Federal Government, in order to promote programs to inform and create awareness in the population, establish financing...

Software tools for landscape analyses--including FVS model extensions, and a number of FVS-related pre- and post-processing “tools”--are presented, using an analysis in the Red River Watershed, Nez Perce National Forest as an example. We present (1) a discussion of pre-simulation data analysis; (2) the Physiographic Information Extraction System (PIES), a tool that can improve the quality of stand level input-data prior to its use in FVS simulations; and (3) tools for output-data spatial analysis, including the Event Monitor ArcView Project (FVS-EMAP), the Westwide Pine Beetle Model...

An El Niño winter in 1998-99, followed by a strong La Niña winter in 1999- 2000, set the stage for potentially large wildfires in the southwestern, southeastern, and northwestern forests of the United States. Researchers at the University of Arizona organized a three-day workshop to discuss the relationship between synoptic scale climate conditions and wildland fire probability. Over the three days, fire managers, fuels managers, fire ecologists, climatologists, and other experts began the task of not only learning from each other, but also figuring out how to talk to each other. The...

Long-term management of wildfire vulnerability requires strategies that address complex interactions between fire ecology and human settlement. In this paper, we examine the integration of wildfire mitigation and land use planning in county governments in the western U.S. This research relies on data from two sources. First, we conducted a survey of land use mitigations in over 300 forested counties in the Western United States. Planning directors in each county were asked to identify and assess land use planning tools adopted in their county for the purpose of reducing wildfire risk....