Treesearch

Communities around the globe are experiencing great difficulty in constraining their water consumption within the limits of available, renewable freshwater supplies. When water consumed from freshwater supplies exceeds natural replenishment from snowmelt, rainfall, or aquifer recharge, freshwater sources can become depleted to the point that water shortages emerge with serious consequences for economies, human and ecosystem health, and social disruption. We describe a quantitative approach—called the “Indicator of Water Supply Sustainability" or IWSS – for assessing trends in the freshwater...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Kentucky. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

Wildfire extent is growing in the United States (US), a fact attributable to increasingly favorable weather and climatic conditions and the net result of human interventions. US federal land management agencies act upon the wildfire threat by managing hazardous fuels, discouraging human‐caused ignitions, and suppressing active fires. Costs of these actions are rising, so policy makers and wildland managers seek information that can help them understand the trade‐offs of resource allocations. This study generates new information about potential future wildfire and suppression demands by...

It is widely perceived that wildfire activity has increased across the western United States (WUS), with studies generally focusing on large wildfires. This study examines changes in the number of wildfire ignitions and burned area in the WUS using a comprehensive record of more than 750 000 wildfire incidents from 1992 to 2020 across biophysical gradients, seasons, and ignition causes. It further analyzes the environmental conditions associated with elevated fire activity. Our analysis comparing the periods 1992–2006 and 2007–2020 indicates that the annual number of recorded wildfires...

Drought is a natural part of the Southeastern United States climate and a threat to agricultural productivity and profitability. Whether slow developing or rapid onset, droughts can have negative effects on agricultural crops and livestock, depending on timing, severity, and length. Droughts are expected to become increasingly common in the Southeast due to increasing temperatures, longer dry periods between rain events, and growing water demand across the region. To help producers remain resilient and productive in the face of this threat, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Southeast...

Context Spatially accurate estimates of forest above-ground biomass (AGB) are indispensable for carbon-stock accounting and sustainable silviculture. Existing mapping approaches face challenges in densely vegetated Coastal Plain forests because of seasonal optical variability, radar–optical saturation, and limited wall-to-wall structural information. Objectives We aimed to (i) develop and evaluate a multisensor, AI-enabled fusion framework for landscape- scale AGB mapping, (ii) quantify the added value of seasonal optical data and photogrammetric canopy-height profiles, and (iii) interpret...

Given the value of ecosystem services provided by mangrove forests, land managers and conservationists are increasingly interested in quantifying their structure and biomass at multiple scales. Because of the many challenges with traditional forest mensuration methods in these forests, scientists are increasingly exploring remote sensing-based approaches. Here we report on efforts to quantify mangrove aboveground volume and biomass in monospecific Avicennia germinans stands in Cedar Key, FL using high density terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). Following merging, cleaning, and segmentation...

It is critical to understand the age-height relationship in actively managed pine plantations to evaluate forest productivity and inform sustainable forest management practices. This study utilized the spaceborne lidar data from ICESat-2 ATL08 and Landsat-derived disturbance maps to assess the site index for actively managed pine plantations across the southeastern United States. Specifically, we (1) assessed the agreement between ICESat-2 ATL08 canopy heights and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, (2) showed the distribution of canopy height by age for the actively managed pine stands,...

Biochar, a carbon-rich material that can be produced from forest byproducts and waste, is emerging as a valuable material for removing heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions. Biochar can be produced by many processes and equipment. Among these, mobile air curtain burners, developed to achieve lower levels of particulate matter and smoke than open pile burning, can be deployed in the field where biomass feedstocks are located. To elucidate lead metal ion (Pb2+) removal mechanisms, this study characterized seven biochars generated by a novel mobile curtain burner, representing the first...

This report describes the framework of a long-term project on the Santee Experimental Forest comparing hydrological processes and vegetation dynamics between two research watersheds: one formerly dominated by loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) and currently being restored to longleaf pine (P. palustris), and the other an unmanaged mixed pine-hardwood reference watershed. Along with descriptions of the watersheds and the silvicultural methods used in the longleaf pine restoration, this report provides baseline data on overstory conditions, soils, leaf area index, and coarse woody debris across the...