Treesearch

The software described in this fact sheet provides managers with tools for visualizing forest and fuels information. Computer-based landscape simulations can help visualize stand and landscape conditions and the effects of different management treatments and fuel changes over time. These visualizations can assist forest planning by considering a range of management options, as well as facilitate communication with a variety of users including the general public.Other publications in this series

This report provides a description of the structure, capacity, and condition of Idaho's primary forest products industry; traces the flow of Idaho's 2001 timber harvest through the primary sectors; and quantifies volumes and uses of wood fiber. The economic contribution of the forest products industry to the State and historical industry changes are discussed, as well as trends in timber harvest, production, and sales.Publication Web Site:https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs/rmrs_rb004.html

We present the statistical theory of inventory and monitoring from a probabilistic point of view. We start with the basics and show the interrelationships between designs and estimators illustrating the methods with a small artificial population as well as with a mapped realistic population. For such applications, useful open source software is given in Appendix 4. Various sources of ancillary information are described and applications of the sampling strategies are discussed. Classical and bootstrap variance estimators are discussed also. Numerous problems with solutions are given, often...

Other fact sheets identified considerations for communicating about hazards, talked about the importance of working locally, and discussed the seven laws of effective hazard communication. This fact sheet introduces the "Golden Rule" of hazard communication and shares some final lessons from hazard educators.Other publications in this series

Recently burned forests in western North America provide nesting habitat for many species of cavity-nesting birds. However, little is understood about the time frame and the variables affecting occupancy of postfire habitats by these birds. We studied factors influencing the occupancy and reuse of nest cavities from 1–7 years after fire in two burned sites of western Idaho during 1994–1999. Tree cavities were used for nesting by 12 species of cavity nesters that were classified by the original occupant (strong excavator, weak excavator, or nonexcavator) of 385 nest cavities. We used...

The U.S. Wilderness Act gives wilderness managers a challenging stewardship responsibility: to provide and/or protect opportunities for certain types of human experiences. The act states that wilderness “shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness.” The significant clause that they are to be enjoyed “as wilderness” is further defined under the definitional characteristics of wilderness. Here wilderness is defined, in part, as an area that “has outstanding opportunities for...

Management of camping impacts in protected areas worldwide is limited by inadequate understanding of spatial patterns of impact and attention to spatial management strategies. Spatial patterns of campsite impact were studied in two subalpine plant communities in the Wind River Mountains, Wyoming, USA (a forest and a meadow). Response to chronic disturbance and recovery from acute disturbance were both assessed. Previously undisturbed sites were camped on at intensities of one and four nights/year, for either one or three consecutive years. Recovery was followed for three years on sites...

This chapter provides a brief overview, and selected in-depth coverage, of the factors and processes that have formed, and continue to shape, our Southwestern grasslands. In general, this chapter looks at how distributions of grasslands are regulated by soils and climate, and modified by disturbance (natural and/or anthropogenic). The attendant ecological components of grasslands will vary according to climate, soil, and other biotic factors including competition, predation, and mutualism. A shifting equilibrium typically exists between grasslands, deserts, and shrublands in the Southwest,...

In this chapter we discuss grassland sustainability in the Southwest, grassland management for sustainability, national and local criteria and indicators of sustainable grassland ecosystems, and monitoring for sustainability at various scales. Ecological sustainability is defined as: [T]he maintenance or restoration of the composition, structure, and processes of ecosystems over time and space. This includes the diversity of plant and animal communities, and the productive capacity of ecological systems and species diversity, ecosystem diversity, disturbance processes, soil productivity,...

Parameterization of subgrid-scale variability in snow accumulation and melt is important for improvements in distributed snowmelt modelling. We have taken the approach of using depletion curves that relate fractional snowcovered area to element-average snow water equivalent to parameterize the effect of snowpack heterogeneity within a physically based mass and energy balance snowpack model. Comparisons of parameterization outputs with distributed model outputs and observations show performance comparable to the distributed model and reasonable performance relative to observations for time...