Treesearch

This document provides guidance on wood preservation options in the context of historic preservation. Preserving wooden building materials is critical to historic preservation practitioners. Biodeterioration can be minimized through design, construction practices, maintenance, and, if necessary, by use of wood preservatives. Moisture is the primary cause of biodeterioration, and if exposure to moisture cannot be prevented, the application of preservatives or use of pressure-treated wood may be warranted. The Secretary of Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties...

To celebrate the 2012 International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, in this chapter we consider in some depth the sustainability of wood energy. To do so, we evaluate the traditional economic, environmental and social dimensions of the sustainability concept. We also address how public policy has influenced wood energy sustainability across the UNECE region.

Moisture sorption in wood-plastic composites (WPCs) affects their durability and dimensional stability. In certain outdoor exposures, the moisture properties of WPCs are altered due to e.g. cracks induced by swelling and shrinkage of the components, as well as UV degradation or biological attack. The aim of this work was to study the effect of different artificial ageing routes on the moisture sorption properties of WPCs. Extruded WPCs were prepared with either unmodified or acetylated wood and recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The WPC samples were artificially aged involving...

The principal findings of the eighth forest survey of Florida are presented. This survey marks a major change in the Forest Inventory and Analysis sampling protocol from a periodic prism sample to an annualized fixed-plot sample. Topics examined include forest area, ownership, forest-type groups, stand origin, timber volume, growth, removals, and mortality, timber product output, nontimber forest products, and forest health factors ranging from down woody material, insects and diseases, to invasive species.

Northern white ash had been the wood of choice for Major League Baseball (MLB) bats until the introduction of hard maple in the late 1990s. Since the introduction of maple to the game, there has been a perceived increase in the rate of bats to exhibit multi-piece failures (MPF)—both ash and maple. Lab and field data indicate that while a maple bat is as equally likely to crack as an ash bat, maple is three times more likely than ash to exhibit an MPF. In 2009 MLB implemented a number of additional regulations and inspection processes for the wood billets in an effort to reduce the MPF...

Biological durability is an important feature for wood-plastic composites (WPC) intended for outdoor applications. One route to achieving WPC products with increased biological durability is to use wood preservative agents in the formulation of the WPC. Another option could be to use a chemically modified wood component that already exhibits increased resistance to biological degradation. There is also a need to use biobased thermoplastics made from renewable resources, which would decrease the dependency on petrochemically-produced thermoplastics in the future. The objective of this study...

Wood is a complex biological structure, a composite of many cell types and chemistries acting together to serve the needs of living plant. Attempting to understand wood inthe context of wood technology, we have often overlooked the basic fact that wood evolved over the course of millions of years to serve three main functions in plants-conduction of water from the roots to the leaves, mechanical support of the plant body, and storage and synthesis of biochemicals. There is no property of wood–physical, mechanical, chemical, biological, or technological–not fundamentally derived from the...

This study sought optimal sustainable management regimes of uneven-aged Norway spruce-dominated stands with multiple objectives. The criteria were financial returns, CO2 sequestration and diversity of tree size and species. At prevailing timber prices, harvest and transport costs, and interest rates, uneven-aged management for timber alone was most profitable with a 5-year cutting cycle. Lengthening the cutting cycle to 20 years decreased the net present value from timber by 10%, but raised the carbon storage by 21%, the tree species diversity by 32%, and the tree size diversity by 24%....

Due to global warming spruce-fir forest and associated vegetation may experience elevational displacement and altered species composition at the timberline-treeline ecotone. These forests and their component species are predicted to migrate upslope and thus landscape features such as timberline and treeline may move upslope as well. Prior to this study, baseline data on forest stand structure, plant species distributions, soil temperatures, and soil carbon pools did not exist across these habitats in the La Sal Mountains. This study will provide data that allows land managers, researchers,...

Many factors influence snow depth, water content and duration in forest ecosystems. The effects of forest cover and canopy gap geometry on snow accumulation has been well documented in coniferous forests of western North America and other regions; however, few studies have evaluated these effects on snowpack dynamics in mixed deciduous forests of the northeastern USA. We measured snow depth and water equivalent near the time of peak snowpack accumulation and, again, during snowmelt to better understand the effect of forests on snowpack properties in the northeastern USA. Surveys occurred...