Treesearch

Climate change is currently affecting ecosystems and natural resources in forest ecosystems across the Western United States (Dettinger et al. 2018, Halofsky and Peterson 2017, Wuebbles et al. 2017). To prepare for the effects of increasing temperatures and shifts in precipitation, resource managers working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (USFS) are currently mandated to integrate climate change information into decisionmaking during land management planning (USDA FS 2012). Climate change adaptation, or taking actions to reduce risks from changing climatic conditions...

The Sierra Nevada Infrastructure and Recreation Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Partnership (hereafter Sierra Nevada Partnership) contributed to our understanding of climate change vulnerabilities and responses to potential climate change effects in national forests in the Sierra Nevada (Modoc National Forest [NF], Lassen NF, Plumas NF, Tahoe NF, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Eldorado NF, Stanislaus NF, Sierra NF, Inyo NF, Sequoia NF). The effort synthesized the best available scientific information to assess climate change vulnerability for recreation and infrastructure,...

The Equivalent Lateral Force (ELF) procedure is the most widely used seismic analysis approach, because of its simplicity and practicality in preliminary and final design phases. This paper applies the ELF procedure to a hypothetical building that stands 5 stories tall, with a 4-story superstructure supported on a rocking story of elliptically profiled cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls. First-generation prototypes made from six CLT panels of 5-ply, 175 mm, thickness—each measuring 2.44 m by 3.66 m in respective width and height—demonstrated that elliptical geometry controls lateral...

During the summer of 2019, seven stress-laminated deck timber bridges were evaluated to assess their field performance and serviceability. These bridges were originally constructed during a six year period (1988-1994) using hardwood lumber as part of a national program initiative in the USA. Its aim was to increase the use of wood in transportation structures primarily in the rural regions of the country. To assess bridge performance, comprehensive visual inspections were conducted and advanced inspection tools were utilized to accurately assess the bridge superstructure components using a...

Effcient wood production and utilization requires knowing the wood quality attributes of forest resources relevant to various end uses, prescribing appropriate silvicultural treatments that positively influence wood quality, and then, at the time of harvesting, sorting and allocating standing timbers to the most appropriate markets [1–3]. The field of forestry has many widely accepted field tools, sampling procedures, and models for gathering and summarizing data and making projections of growth, yield, and tree size; however, counterparts for wood quality assessment have lagged behind...

This is 1 of 23 guides to help Southeastern U.S. producers of economically important agricultural commodities build resilience to, prepare for, and recover from hurricane impacts. All guides can be found on the USDA Southeast Climate Hub Hurricane Preparation and Recovery Commodity Guides website.

This is 1 of 23 guides to help Southeastern U.S. producers of economically important agricultural commodities build resilience to, prepare for, and recover from hurricane impacts. All guides can be found on the USDA Southeast Climate Hub Hurricane Preparation and Recovery Commodity Guides website.

There is increasing discussion in the academic and agency literature, as well as popular media, about the need to address the existing deficit of beneficial fire on landscapes. One approach allowable under United States federal wildland fire policy that could help address this condition is by deliberately managing wildfire with a strategy other than full suppression (hereafter referred to as 'managed wildfire'). To improve the understanding of the managed fire decision-making process, we conducted a mixed methods review of the existing literature. This review spanned 1976 to 2013 and used...

Natural resource managers need accurate depictions of existing resources to make informed decisions. The classical approach to describing resources for a given area in a quantitative manner uses probabilistic sampling and design-based inference to estimate population parameters. While probabilistic designs are accepted as being necessary for design-based inference, many recent studies have adopted non-probabilistic designs that do not include elements of random selection or balance and have relied on models to justify inferences. While common, model-based inference alone assumes that a...

The Sierra Nevada region is characterized by high topographical and climatological diversity (Dettinger et al. 2018), extending 400 mi north to south and 70 mi east to west. Elevations are higher in the southern end of the range, with Mount Whitney (14,505 ft) being the highest peak in the contiguous United States; peaks in the northern part of the range are generally less than 8,800 ft (Minnich and Padgett 2003). The western portion of the Sierra Nevada region is characterized by a Mediterranean climate, with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers. The western portion of the Sierra...