Treesearch

The meaning of compatibility in systems of taper and volume equations has been extended. It is desirable and possible to develop completely compatible taper and volume equation systems that have algebraic compatibility and numeric consistency among all the component equations. Two such taper and volume systems were developed for slash pine in the southeastern United States. One was derived from a recently developed merchantable volume equation (Zhao and Kane 2017), and the other was derived from the well-known Max and Burkhart segmented polynomial taper equation (1976). Three fitting...

Two approaches to greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories are common, namely the stock-change approach and the gain–loss approach. With the stock-change approach, mean annual emissions are estimated as the ratio of the difference in stock estimates at two points in time and the number of intervening years. The stock-change approach is fairly easy to implement for countries with well-established forest sampling programs. However, countries without established forest sampling programs more commonly use the gain–loss approach. With this approach, emissions are estimated as the product of the areas...

Over the past 20 years, the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) has caused considerable tree mortality across the Rocky Mountain region of the western United States. Although the operational and cost impacts of dead timber are generally well known in the sawmill industry, there remains a need to better understand the impact of large-scale outbreaks on the industry at local and regional scales. Using an expert opinion survey of sawmill managers and procurement staff, this study quantified the relative importance of various cost and operations factors related to harvesting and...

Beginning in the late 1990s, the pine forests of Montana began to experience the largest mountain pine beetle outbreak in recorded history. Large swaths of forests began to turn red, then gray as the beetles ate their way through Pacific Northwest stands. At their peak in 2009, this native insect infested nearly 3.7 million acres statewide, leaving dead or dying trees in their wake. The infestation became a hot topic not only among those concerned with forest management, but also among the wood products industry. By 2014, pine beetle numbers began to decline with new infestation totaling...

In many temperate forested watersheds, hydrologic nitrogen export has declined substantially in recent decades, and many of these watersheds show enduring effects from historic acid deposition. A watershed acid remediation experiment in New Hampshire reversed many of these legacy effects of acid deposition and also increased watershed nitrogen export, suggesting that these two phenomena may be coupled. Here we examine stream nitrate dynamics in this watershed acid remediation experiment for indicators of nitrogen saturation in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Post-treatment, the...

Fifty years ago, riparian habitats were not recognized for their extensive and critical contributions to wildlife and the ecosystem function of watersheds. This changed as riparian values were identified and documented, and the science of riparian ecology developed steadily. Papers in this volume range from the more mesic northwestern United States to the arid Southwest and Mexico. More than two dozen authors - most with decades of experience - review the origins of riparian science in the western United States, document what is currently known about riparian ecosystems, and project future...

Southwestern white pine (Pinus strobiformis; SWWP) is a conifer species that occurs at mid to high elevations in the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. A key component of mixed conifer forests in the region, SWWP is an important species for wildlife and biodiversity. The dual threats of the non-native fungal pathogen that causes white pine blister rust (WPBR) and a warmer, drier projected future climate have created an uncertain future for SWWP. In this study, we used a novel multi-scale optimization approach including an ensemble of four species distribution modeling...

Drawing on national forest visitor use data from 722 overnight use recreation sites across 27 National Forests with oil and gas development, this work examines whether the presence of oil and gas development within five kilometers of an overnight recreation site affects site visitation. Findings suggest that sites within five kilometers of oil and gas wells see less visitation, compared to sites farther away from wells. While this work does not attempt to speculate on the overall user experience, it does suggest that the presence of oil and gas development may have a significant enough...

NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamic Investigation (GEDI) mission has been designed to measure forest structure using lidar waveforms to sample the earth’s vegetation while in orbit aboard the International Space Station. In this paper, we used airborne large-footprint (LF) lidar measurements to simulate GEDI observations from which we retrieved ground elevation, vegetation height, and aboveground biomass (AGB). GEDI-like product accuracy was then assessed by comparing them to similar products derived from airborne small-footprint (SF) lidar measurements. The study focused on tropical forests...

The United States Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has been monitoring national forest resources in the United States for over 80 years; presented here is a synthesis of research applications for FIA data. A review of over 180 publications that directly utilize FIA data is broken down into broad categories of application and further organized by methodologies and niche research areas. The FIA program provides the most comprehensive forest database currently available, with permanent plots distributed across all forested lands and ownerships in the United States and plot histories...