Treesearch

Nowadays forest fires are so rare in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and other floodplains of the southeastern USA that these floodplains appear fireproof. Fire was once much more common across the Southeastern Coastal Plain, including in these forested floodplains. Even so, fire was not the fundamental ecological disturbance in floodplain forests that it was in adjacent uplands; flooding served that role here. Other disturbances, like hurricanes, tornados, and beavers opened floodplain forests and may have been antecedents to fires. Since the arrival of Europeans, the disturbance regime...

The application of scientifically rigorous public engagement approaches is lacking. In this context, we present a “social vulnerability protocol” which has now been applied in several broad-scale planning efforts. The protocol aims to understand the multitude of relationships that people have with public land through a prioritization of ecosystem services and a selection of relevant drivers of change. The protocol is analytically rigorous and readily interpretable, and is clearly tied to the planning objectives of knowledge co-production, tradeoff analysis, and understanding how various...

Quantifying invasion severity of nonnative invasive plant species is vital for the development of appropriate mitigation and control measures. We examined more than 23,250 Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots from the southern coastal states of the United States to develop an alternative method to classify and map the invasion severity of Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera). Remeasured FIA plot-level data were used to examine the spatiotemporal changes in the presence probability and cover percentage of tallow. Four invasion severity classes were identified by using the product of...

This report provides a multiscale approach for assessing the geomorphic sensitivity of streams and ecological resilience of riparian ecosystems, including meadows, in upland watersheds of the Great Basin to disturbances and management actions. Part I describes the key concepts needed to understand geomorphic sensitivity, ecological resilience, and ecological integrity. The watershed characteristics and components that influence sensitivity and resilience to disturbance are discussed, including the geomorphic characteristics of the stream channels and vegetation characteristics of the...

This report traces the flow of Montana’s 2018 timber harvest through the primary wood-using industries; provides a description of the structure, capacity, and condition of Montana’s primary forest products industry; and quantifies volumes and uses of wood fiber. Historical wood products industry changes are discussed, as well as changes in harvest, production, employment, and sales. objectives.

This manuscript reports on an effort to account, estimate, and document, to the fullest extent possible, direct payments for ecosystem services to private forest landowners in the United States. This includes paymentsderived from markets, subsidies, and hybrid approaches, from both governmental and non-governmental sources. Data were compiled from government agencies, public registries, and surveys of market participants. In some cases full reporting of program/market payments and forest area enrolled was possible. In other cases estimation was necessary, including averaging and interpolati...

The primary focus of this assessment is a quantitative analysis of the smoke impacts, on both air quality and health, from wildland fires. As detailed in the conceptual framework outlined in Chapter 2, in the process of examining the trade-offs between prescribed fire and wildfire it is also important to consider the potential effects, both positive and negative, of the fire itself. Although it is not possible in this assessment to quantify these effects because location-specific data are limited, the qualitative characterization of these additional effects helps add context to the overall...

Mapping and quantifying forest inventories are critical for the management and development of forests for natural resource conservation and for the evaluation of the aboveground forest biomass (AGFB) technically available for bioenergy production. The AGFB estimation procedures that rely on traditional spatially sparse field inventory samples constitute a problem for geographically diverse regions such as the state of North Carolina in the southeastern U.S. We propose an alternative AGFB estimation procedure that combines multiple geospatial data. The procedure uses land cover maps to...

The world is facing severe challenges from climate change and resource scarcity caused by exponential growth in population and the rising standard of living. Raw materials for buildings and construction account for more than 35% of global primary energy use and nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions. The public as well as city, state, and national governments are interested in knowing the environmental impacts of materials including wood products. This study conducted a cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessment (LCA) of laminated strand lumber (LSL) production in North America (United...

In young Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco var. menziesii) stands, intensive forest management has resulted in variable responses in survival and growth and therefore stand biomass due to effects on microclimate and competition for limited resources. As seedling genetics and management practices develop over time, there is a need to re-evaluate how Douglas-fir survival and growth varies with intensive practices. Five-year Douglas-fir diameter at 15 cm (D15) and height growth, biomass, and nitrogen (N) pools after organic matter removals and soil compaction at a recently...