Treesearch

In the beginning of 2013, the U.S. housing construction market indicated increases in all sectors; yet, by the fourth quarter’s end, only housing under construction improved. Moderation and declines are to be expected in the fourth quarter, as winter is setting in. Permits, starts, housing under construction, completions, and new and existing house sales all exceeded the record lows recorded in the 2008 to 2011 time period. With that stated, there are still several hindrances for a return to a robust housing industry, including a sluggish economy, declining real incomes, and stricter...

Ulmus americana (American elm) was an important urban tree in North America prior to the introduction of the Dutch elm disease pathogen in 1930. Subsequently, urban and community forests were devastated by the loss of large canopies. Tree improvement programs produced disease tolerant American and Eurasian elm cultivars and introduced them into the nursery industry. However, consumer acceptance was slow. The National Elm Trial was established to evaluate commercially available taxa of elm across the United States. Established at 16 locations, these plantings monitored survival and growth,...

The U.S. housing construction market’s third quarter was subdued, as all sectors moderated or declined. Once again, consensus expectations were for aggregate housing market gains, and these expectations were not realized. Overall starts, housing under construction, and completion data indicated quarterly improvement. Viewed from a recent his¬torical context, all housing construction subsectors exceeded the record lows observed in the 2008 to 2011 time period.

The U.S. housing market’s quarter two results were disap¬pointing compared with the first quarter. Although overall expected gains did not materialize, certain sectors improved slightly. Housing under construction, completions, and new and existing home sales exhibited slight increases. Overall permit data declined, and the decrease in starts was due primarily to a plunge in multifamily starts. Viewed from a recent historical context, all housing construction subsectors exceeded the record lows recorded in the 2008 to 2011 time period.

Spatial decision support systems for forest management have steadily evolved over the past 20+ years in order to better address the complexities of contemporary forest management issues such as the sustainability and resilience of ecosystems on forested landscapes. In this paper, we describe and illustrate new features of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system that extend the system’s traditional support for landscape analysis and strategic planning to include a simple approach to feature-based tactical planning priorities. The study area for this work was the Chewaucan...

Dimension lumber, visually graded in accordance with the National Grading Rule and assigned design values derived in accordance with procedures found in ASTM D 1990, has provided satisfactory performance in homes and other structural applications for many years. This ongoing satisfactory performance depends upon a recognition that all standards are living documents that must change over time as new information becomes available. In fact, since its original approval in 1991, D 1990 has been revised to reflect knowledge gained and the changing needs of the wood products industry. These...

Scientists are increasingly called upon to integrate across ecological and social disciplines to tackle complex coupled human and natural system (CHANS) problems. Integration of these disciplines is challenging and many scientists do not have experience with large integrated research projects. However, much can be learned about the complicated process of integration from such efforts. We document some of these lessons from a National Science Foundation-funded CHANS project (Forests, People, Fire) and present considerations for developing and engaging in coupled human and natural system...

The degree to which cloud immersion provides water in addition to rainfall, suppresses transpiration, and sustains tropical montane cloud forests (TMCFs) during rainless periods is not well understood. Climate and land use changes represent a threat to these forests if cloud base altitude rises as a result of regional warming or deforestation. To establish a baseline for quantifying future changes in cloud base, we installed a ceilometer at 100m altitude in the forest upwind of the TMCF that occupies an altitude range from 600m to the peaks at 1100m in the Luquillo Mountains of eastern...

As southern pine forests (both planted and naturally regenerated) are more heavily used to provide biomass for the developing energy sectors and carbon sequestration, a better understanding of models used to characterize regional biomass estimates is needed. We harvested loblolly pines (Pinus taeda L.) between 0.5 and 15 cm dbh from several plantations and naturally regenerated stands in southeastern Arkansas to evaluate allometric relationships based on stand origin. In this process, each pine was separated into stemwood, branches + foliage, and taproot biomass components. Although the...

Short rotation woody crops (SRWCs) are key renewable feedstocks for the emerging bioeconomy. A critical step in developing a bioeconomy is defining suitable regions for commercial SRWC activities. The goal of this study was to estimate the obtainable yield in mean annual increment and economic returns on investment for Populus deltoides and Populus hybrids for the 33 eastern states using the 3PG model (Physiological Principles Predicting Growth). Yields ranged from 0.5 to 11.9 oven-dry tons (ODT) ac-1yr-1 with a mean of 3.9 ODT ac-1yr-1. Spatially, southern Illinois, Louisiana, Indiana,...