Treesearch

Employment in the US logging industry has been declining over the past few decades and fell to a 20-year low following the 2008 economic recession. This study investigates the drivers of employment in the US logging industry from 2007 to 2017, using a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This approach is applied for the first time to disclose the contemporaneous causal relations among employment, wages, mechanization, production level, and product prices in the logging industry. Forecast error variance decomposition (VD) is further used to examine the long-run dynamic relationships between these...

Biochar and manure may be used to enhance soil quality and productivity for sustainable agriculture and forestry operations. However, the response of surface and belowground wood decomposition (i.e., soil processes) and nutrient flux to soil amendments is unknown, and more site-specific information about soil property responses is also essential. In a split-plot design, the soil was amended with three rates of manure (whole plot; 0, 3, and 9 Mg ha-1) and three rates of biochar (split-plot; 0, 2.5, and 10 Mg ha-1). Soil physical properties, nutrients, and enzyme activities were evaluated in...

Alpine ecosystems in the arid southwestern United States are vulnerable to climate change. Many of these ecosystems are experiencing increased recreational use and introductions of nonindigenous ungulates. In the La Sal Mountains of southeastern Utah, alpine plant communities support an endemic plant species, Erigeron mancus, 11 plant and two animal species of conservation concern, and a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Research Natural Area. Nonindigenous mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) were introduced by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) in...

Wildland fires are fundamentally landscape phenomena, making it imperative to evaluate wildland fire strategic goals and fuel treatment effectiveness at large spatial and temporal scales. Outside of simulation models, there is limited information on how stand-level fuel treatments collectively contribute to broader landscape-level fuel management goals. Our objective here is to present a framework designed to measure fuel treatment effectiveness from stands to landscapes to inform fuel treatment planning and improve ecological and social resilience to wildland fire.

Safety zones (SZs) are critical tools that can be used by wildland firefighters to avoid injury or fatality when engaging a fire. Effective SZs provide safe separation distance (SSD) from surrounding flames, ensuring that a fire’s heat cannot cause burn injury to firefighters within the SZ. Evaluating SSD on the ground can be challenging, and underestimating SSD can be fatal. We introduce a new online tool for mapping SSD based on vegetation height, terrain slope, wind speed, and burning condition: the Safe Separation Distance Evaluator (SSDE). It allows users to draw a potential SZ...

Understanding habitat dynamics is essential for effective conservation as landscapes rapidly change. In a companion paper in this issue, Shirk et al. (2023) introduced an automated habitat monitoring system using Google Earth Engine and applied this framework to develop a dynamic model of Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) habitat across the southwestern US from 1986 to 2020. Objectives We explored the application of this dynamic model of Mexican spotted owl habitat in the context of the species’ ecology.

Recent increases in ecological disturbances driven by climate change and our expanding human footprint make it challenging for natural resource managers to keep apprised of current conditions and adjust management plans accordingly. To effectively conserve species in highly dynamic landscapes requires more timely habitat monitoring and a more responsive adaptive management cycle.

Socially vulnerable populations in the United States are bearing the highest costs of water scarcity, which is likely to worsen with climate change, population growth, and growing disparities between areas with high demand and the location of available supplies. Prior research showing that socially vulnerable groups are inequitably exposed to some of the worst shortages has focused on singular dimensions of social vulnerability, typically in relatively localized geographies, leaving us with an incomplete understanding of the national scope of the problem. This study combines data on...

We developed new measures of structural complexity using single point terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds. These metrics are depth, openness, and isovist. Depth is a three-dimensional, radial measure of the visible distance in all directions from plot center. Openness is the percent of scan pulses in the near-omnidirectional view without a return. Isovists are a measurement of the area visible from the scan location, a quantified measurement of the viewshed within the forest canopy. 243 scans were acquired in 27 forested stands in the Pacific Northwest region of the United...

Afforestation to control soil erosion has been implemented throughout China over the past few decades. The long-term hydrological effects, such as total water yield and baseflow, of this large-scale anthropogenic activity remain unclear. Using six decades of hydrologic observations and remote sensing data, we explore the hydrological responses to forest expansion in four basins with contrasting climates across China. No significant change in runoff was found for the period 1970–2012 for the cold and dry Hailar River Basin in northeastern China. However, both forest expansion and reduced...