Treesearch

An intermediate-complexity, quasi-physically based, meteorological model (MicroMet) has been developed to produce high-resolution (e.g., 30-m to 1-km horizontal grid increment) atmospheric forcings required to run spatially distributed terrestrial models over a wide variety of landscapes. The following eight variables, required to run most terrestrial models, are distributed: air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, incoming solar radiation, incoming longwave radiation, surface pressure, and precipitation. To produce these distributions, MicroMet assumes that at...

Forest condition in Europe has been monitored over 19 years jointly by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the European Union (EU). Large-scale variations of forest condition over space and time in relation to natural and anthropogenic factors are assessed on about 6,000 plots systematically spread across Europe. This large-scale monitoring intensity is referred to as “Level I.” Causal relationships are studied in detail on about 860 intensive monitoring plots covering the most important forest ecosystems in Europe. This intensive monitoring is referred to as...

Of all the steps in monitoring, choosing the correct indicators is arguably the most important. The challenge is obvious: among all the possible attributes of an ecosystem that can be measured, select a small number whose measurement will tell you something about all of the unmeasured attributes and processes. Even if a monitoring program is fully funded and implemented for many years, it will fail if the wrong indicators were selected. Yet establishing a strong logical basis for indicator selection is often overlooked. It is not unusual to discover that great thought and deliberation have...

Over the past decade, wild fire events in riparian bosque (forested) areas along the Middle Rio Grande between Elephant Butte and Albuquerque have increased dramatically owing to flood suppression and accumulation of dead wood and exotic Tamarisk and Russian olive. This problem culminated in a large wild fire in July 1993 that resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of City of Albuquerque residents and captured the national media’s attention. Prior to this event, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, in collaboration with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, City of Albuquerque Open...

The USFS Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) and the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) produce Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) maps as a rapid, preliminary indication of burn severity on large wildfire events. Currently the preferred burn severity index is the delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR), which requires NBR values from both immediate post-fire and pre-fire Landsat images, the preferred satellite image source. The objective was to compare NBR, dNBR, and other indices with potential to indicate burn severity, using as the evaluation...

Review of conservation history and scientific developments helps us understand relationships between humans, environment, and sustainability. Applying “conservation” to natural resources and practical resource management occurred early in the Twentieth Century; practical economic definitions of conservation and natural resource followed. Resource surpluses underpin the luxury of conservation in which we currently bask. We are not paying attention to the fact that accumulated natural science discoveries about wide-ranging resource distribution -- so specialized that many scientists are...

Zion National Park is located in southwestern Utah at the junction of three geographic regions: the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau. This unique geography creates distinctive habitats in Zion. With the Virgin River running through the middle of the park, Zion is a refuge for plants, animals, and humans as well.

Biological control has successfully controlled 10 exotic, invasive weeds of rangelands and natural ecosystems in the United States since 1945, and control of others is in progress. We initiated biological control of saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) in 1987, using host-specific insect herbivores that regulate saltcedar populations in the Old World. We did a risk analysis, including the possible effects of biological control on the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher, (Empidonax trailii extimus) which had begun nesting extensively in saltcedar in Arizona. Our cooperators in France, Israel,...

More than 25 percent of earth warming can be attributes to deforestation practices such as crop rotations performed in southeast part of Mexico. In the Yucatan peninsula 20 percent of staple foods such as maize and beans are produced under slash and burn system. It has been practiced for many centuries by native Mayans however population pressure and food scarcity made short fallow periods. Thus soil fertility decline and farmers used to changed to new fertile areas slashing and burning about 250 thousand per year. Natural degradation is a problem in this region therefore a project to...

The FTM-West (“fuel treatment market” model for U.S. West) is a dynamic partial market equilibrium model of regional softwood timber and wood product markets, designed to project future market impacts of expanded fuel treatment programs that remove trees to reduce fire hazard on forestlands in the U.S. West. The model solves sequentially the annual equilibria in wood markets from 1997 to 2004 and projects annual equilibria from 2005 to 2020 using detailed assumptions about future thinning programs and market trends. FTM-West was designed specifically to account for economic complexities...