Treesearch

Summaries and conclusions of each chapter are compiled here to provide a “Quick Reference” guide of major results and recommendations for the UVR. More detail can be obtained from individual chapters.

The main information sources for the UVR consist of several web sites with general information and bibliographies. RMRS has publications on its Air, Water, Aquatic Environments (AWAE) Program Flagstaff web site. Another RMRS and University of Arizona website on semi-arid and arid watersheds contains a large, searchable bibliography of supporting information from the Beaver Creek watersheds, in the Middle Verde River area. The Verde Watershed Association has a website on the river and normally supports a bibliography of publications. Northern Arizona University also supports several...

The UVR area of north-central Arizona overlaps the Central Highlands and the Plateau Uplands biogeographic provinces. The UVR area occupies about 6,700 km2 (2,600 mi2) of Yavapai and Coconino Counties (fig. 1.1), and its watershed encompasses the northern valley of the Verde River bounded by the escarpment of the Mogollon Rim to the north and northeast and by the Black Hills to the southwest. The Mogollon Rim escarpment is the boundary between the Plateau uplands province and the Central highlands province. It is a steeply sloping cliff that rises 310 to 610 m (1,000 to 2,000 ft) from the...

Community wildfire protection planning has become an important tool for engaging wildland-urban interface residents and other stakeholders in efforts to address their mutual concerns about wildland fire management, prioritize hazardous fuel reduction projects, and improve forest health. Drawing from 13 case studies from across the United States, this article describes best management practices (BMP) that emerged from the data for facilitating the development of Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) and ensuring that planning leads to action on the ground. Three BMPs are emphasized:...

In addition to being one of the primary drivers of the net terrestrial carbon budget, forest disturbance also plays a critical role in regulating the surface energy balance, promoting biodiversity, and creating wildlife habitat. With climate change and an ever growing human population poised to alter the frequency and severity of disturbance regimes across the globe, improved monitoring of forest disturbance, especially at the landscape scale has taken on renewed importance. Because forest disturbance manifests at a variety of spatial and temporal scales and has varying impacts which...

This study investigates the impacts of southern yellow pine plantations on species evenness and richness in the gulf coastal plain. This process involves using spatial lag and spatial error regression techniques using GeoDa software and U.S. Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis data. The results indicate that increasing plantation area is negatively correlated to species evenness and richness. Preliminary results indicate that for every 10 percent increment increase in southern yellow pine plantation area, Shannon's E decreases by 0.02 and species richness declines by 1.6...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the U.S. Forest Service has explicitly assumed responsibility for providing an inventory of the U.S. forests' carbon stocks and stock change to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for numerous years to meet obligations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Recent improvements, plans for the future, and implications regarding use of the U.S. inventory both nationally and at the project scale are discussed.

The UVR corridor is a diverse riverine ecosystem in central Arizona (see Chapter 1). Since European settlement, it has witnessed many events such as droughts, floods, construction of Sullivan Dam, groundwater withdrawals, cattle grazing, mining, nonnative fish introductions, native fish extinctions, and urbanization that are not fully understood. Geologically, the UVR displays a wide array of formations of spectacular color and variety; the landscapes vary from open valleys to narrow and deep canyons. Several publications have described the Verde River (Wirt and Hjalmarson 2000; Blasch and...

The Central Arizona Highlands are a distinct biogeographic, climatic, and physiographic province that forms a diverse ecotone between the more extensive Colorado Plateau to the north and the Sonoran Desert ecoregions to the south (Ffolliott 1999). The Highlands coincide closely to the Arizona Transition Zone identified by ecologists, geologists, and others (Karlstrom and Bowring 1988; Hendricks and Plescia 1991; Ezzo and Price 2002). The Central Arizona Highlands have been the focus of a wide range of research efforts designed to learn more about the effects of natural and human-induced...

Managers of the Prescott National Forest are obliged to evaluate the conditions of watersheds under their jurisdiction in order to guide informed decisions concerning grazing allotments, forest and woodland management, restoration treatments, and other management initiatives. Watershed condition has been delineated by contrasts between “good” and “poor” conditions (DeBano and Schmidt 1989). Good condition is characterized by vegetation and litter cover that is capable of absorbing precipitation, temporarily storing it, and slowly releasing it through a network of channels with minimal...