Treesearch

The FireFlux II experiment was conducted in a tall grass prairie located in south-east Texas on 30 January 2013 under a regional burn ban and high fire danger conditions. The goal of the experiment was to better understand micrometeorological aspects of fire spread. The experimental design was guided by the use of a coupled fire–atmosphere model that predicted the fire spread in advance. Preliminary results show that after ignition, a surface pressure perturbation formed and strengthened as the fire front and plume developed, causing an increase in wind velocity at the fire front. The...

Growing indigenous empowerment and recognition of rights with respect to natural resources was identified as an emerging trend in the USDA Forest Service-University of Houston Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system. An exploratory Implications Wheel® exercise was conducted to uncover possible future implications of this trend. The exercise was carried out with a group of University of Houston Foresight graduate students, faculty, and alumni. The exercise did not include American Indian or Alaska Native participants, and due to this limitation it should be viewed as an illustration of the...

A scenario backcasting project, an offshoot of the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system, was carried out for the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station’s Strategic Foresight Group. The horizon scanning team, from the University of Houston Foresight program, sought to provide context for the scanning hits and emerging issues identified through scanning by linking them to a set of scenarios. Scanning hits and emerging issues could then be analyzed and understood in relation to the scenarios; the ways that emerging issues might develop under different scenarios could be explored. A...

The walnut twig beetle, a native phloem-boring bark beetle originating on Arizona walnut, has invaded urban, orchard, and native forest habitats throughout the USA as well as in Italy. Although the beetle has been associated with dead and dying walnut trees indigenous to riparian forests of the Southwest, the primary impact appears to have been on the health of landscape black walnut trees in urban and peri-urban sites in western US states, and in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. This has been reflected in numbers of trees removed and tree removal costs. In addition, trees have been...

Horizon scanning produces a significant amount of information about potential change that may be on the horizon. To be useful for the intended audiences, this large volume of information must be sorted, condensed, analyzed, interpreted, and presented in formats that fit the needs of diverse users. This paper describes the various current and planned communication outputs of the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning project, including the scanning library, blog posts about significant scanning hits or emerging themes, a periodic digest summarizing interesting scanning hits, detailed articles and...

A clear and concise guide for volunteer scanners is essential for creating a rigorous, consistent, and sustainable horizon scanning system. The scanner guide written for the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system is presented in its entirety. The guide includes an overview of the USDA Forest Service; an explanation of horizon scanning and its goals, uses, and stakeholders; a "how to" guide for installing and using the Web-based system for collecting scanning hits; a description of the domain map used in tagging scanning hits; and a quick guide to getting started in scanning.

Horizon scanning is a method for detecting and interpreting the implications of emerging issues and other signals of change, both within and outside of an organization or field. Anticipating possible changes that may affect an organization is a first step toward strategic thinking, planning, and actions that can help prepare it for an uncertain future. Developing insight into emerging possible futures—or strategic foresight—can help decisionmakers respond proactively to seize opportunities and mitigate potential threats. Decisionmaking in forestry and other natural resource management...

A novel approach is presented to analyze smoke exposure and provide a metric to quantify health-related impacts. Our results support the current understanding that managing low-intensity fire for ecological benefit reduces exposure when compared to a high-intensity full suppression fire in the Sierra Nevada of California. More frequent use of fire provides an opportunity to mitigate smoke exposure for both individual events and future emission scenarios. The differences in relative exposure between high-intensity, low-intensity, and prescribed burn were significant (P value < 0.01)....

The external environment in which forest planners, managers, and policymakers operate today is one of rapid, complex, and turbulent change. The broad social, economic, technological, and political contexts for forestry are constantly changing and the pace of change is accelerating (Steffen et al. 2015). The internal environment for forestry is also characterized by rapid and often surprising change, as new developments and emerging issues within the field continually appear and pose challenges for decisionmakers. To be effective in these changing internal and external contexts, forestry...

The USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station,s Strategic Foresight Group partnered with the University of Houston Foresight program to design and implement a horizon scanning system for the agency. The guiding question for the project was: What emerging issues might impact forests, forestry, and the Forest Service in the future? The University of Houston's "Framework Foresight" approach provided the conceptual foundation for this horizon scanning system. Framing of the topic is described, including creation of a domain map, and identifying the geographic focus, timeframe, and...