Treesearch

Many of the analyses needed to address multiple resource issues are focused on vegetation pattern and process relationships and most rely on the data models produced from vegetation classification, mapping, and/or inventory. The Northern Region Vegetation Mapping Project (R1-VMP) data models are based on these three integrally related, yet separate processes. This paper describes the integration of vegetation classification, mapping, and inventory to produce the basic vegetation data for land and resource planning and management for the USDA Forest Service Northern Region. The conceptual...

A brief outline is given of what is considered required for a research/teaching Institute for inventory and monitoring in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. An important part of this presentation is to get feedback from the audience on suggestions of how to best implement such an institute.

Wildfire management is an institutionally complex process involving a complex budget and appropriations cycle, a variety of objectives, and a set of internal and external political constraints. Significant potential exists for enhancing the use of climate information and long-range climate forecasts in wildland fire management in the Western U.S. Written surveys and interviews of fire and fuels managers at local, regional, and national levels, provide information and insights into the decision processes, information flows, and decision nodes used in wildfire planning and management, and...

The National Park Service (NPS) initiated a new “Vital Signs” program in 1998 to develop comprehensive, long-term monitoring of ecological resources within U.S. national parks. Vital signs (VS) are indicators, and are defined as key elements, processes or features of the environment that can be measured or estimated and that indicate the ecological integrity of an ecosystem. A core science team is working with the 11 parks of the Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) to identify appropriate regional and park-specific indicators of ecological integrity, and to develop criteria for assessing...

Fire behavior simulation is based mainly on the fuel model-concept. However, there are great difficulties to develop the corresponding maps, therefore it is suggested the generation of four fuel maps (1-hour, 10-hours, 100-hours and alive). These maps will allow a better definition of the spatial variation of forest fuels, even within a zone classified as a given fuel model. The used data was acquired under a forest inventory of 554 sample plots, within an are of 1,400 ha approximately, in the ejido El Largo y Anexos (Chihuahua, México). Twelve different interpolation techniques (five...

The implementation of silvicultural strategies in a forest management has to guaranty forest sustainability, which is supported by an adequate regeneration. Therefore, quality and intensity of silvicultural practices is based on an accurate knowledge of the current spatial distribution of regeneration. At the same time, this regeneration is determined by the spatial distribution of many disturbing factors, such as fuel loadings, trees density, and grazing. However, regeneration mapping is not considered very often because its evaluation is both time and cost consuming. As a practical...

Southeastern Australia, where the State of Victoria is located is regarded as one of the most fire prone areas in the world. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology provides fire weather services in Victoria as part of a national framework for the provision of such services. These services range from fire weather warnings to special forecasts for hazard reduction burns. Fire weather services are important inputs into the decision-making processes of fire management authorities that enable effective decision-making at various stages of fire management. The key beneficiaries of these services...

One consequence of globalization is that parts of the world that were once remote and minimally influenced by broader political and economic developments now find themselves profoundly affected by forces beyond their comprehension. Communities that were once self-sufficient and resilient come to depend on larger systems, no longer control their own destinies, and confront adverse environmental changes. Such local consequences result from changes in the vertical scale of political and economic integration. While the term globalization is much used today, the processes vand consequences of...

Biodiversity is a global endowment of nature. Conservation of biodiversity includes all species of plants, animals and other organisms, the range of genetic stocks within each species, and ecosystem diversity. Food, many types of medicine and industrial products are provided by the biological resources that are the basis of life on Earth. The value of the Earth’s biological resources can be broadly classified as direct and indirect. Consumptive and productive uses are direct values, whereas non-consumptive uses and options for the future constitute indirect values. One of the most fundament...

This paper addresses the change from earth as self-managing ecosystem operating within local limits and natural laws, to a human-dominated ecosystem where people falsely believe they live outside natural limits and laws. It reviews the shift from low-technology and regional-economics to advanced technologies and globalization whose impacts exceed nature’s ability to regenerate and that render the earth incapable of self-management. It calls for a shift from the present source-to-waste paradigm to one that promotes system regeneration; and for environmental management essential to a...