Treesearch

This study assessed heat vulnerability in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, by integrating satellitederived land surface temperature (LST) data with demographic and socioeconomic indicators. Spatial analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and multivariate regression were applied to develop a Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI) that maps heat risk across urban neighborhoods. Environmental variables, LST, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), impervious surface cover, slope, and elevation, were analyzed alongside indicators such as age, disability, living alone, poverty, and unemploym...

Fish escapes from open water net pens around the globe present persistent and unresolved challenges for aquaculture governance, environmental stewardship, and industry accountability. These escape events are widely recognized as disturbances to ecosystem services and functions [1], carry significant social and financial repercussions [2], and have prompted regional prohibitions on net-pen farming [3]. Particularly concerning is the potential for escaped fish to reproduce successfully [4], which can lead to genetic introgression with wild conspecifics or negative interactions with other...

The release of contaminants into the environment can occur from anthropogenic activities, such as oil extraction and transportation, mining, and industrial processes. Remediation associated with reducing contaminant concentrations, and restoration that improves animals and supporting habitat, are often needed to restore ecosystems to their pre-release, baseline condition. We demonstrated the application of Bayesian Decision Networks (BDNs) with two Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) case studies. We use a stylized case study of riparian restoration following the...

There is a global abundance of non-perennial rivers and streams, of which are predicted to increase due to environmental change and anthropogenic influences. However, most modeled representations of streamflow have been constructed with perennial systems in mind, leaving a gap in our understanding and representation of non-perennial systems. To adapt to future challenges, there is a need to determine what modeled representations of low- and no-flow in non-perennial rivers and streams do well and where uncertainties may lie in the internal representations of hydrologic processes. Here we...

Large wood (LW) entrainment and transport observations of naturally occurring wood in rivers are critical for understanding wood dynamics. However, they remain limited and sparse, primarily originating from single-site studies. As a result, broader spatial or temporal variability of wood dynamics may not be adequately captured. We compiled a database of tracked, natural pieces of wood from 11 low-order and relatively steep streams in the Chilean Andes, Swiss Alps, United Kingdom and United States. From decades to single-year studies, we gathered 59,739 observations of tracked wood, which...

Reforestation practices have potential to alter site productivity and influence forest stand development. We evaluated the effects of logging debris (LD) manipulation (LD dispersed, LD piled, and LD removed) and competing vegetation control (VC; initial VC only or annual VC for five years) on Douglas-fir stand characteristics at two sites in western Washington and Oregon, USA that contrasted strongly in soil quality (SQ). Annual VC had a pronounced effect on stand volume compared to initial VC, but the magnitude of effect was greater at the low SQ site (~50 % increase in volume) than at...

This indicator provides information on the population status of selected forest-associated species that are considered to reflect the genetic diversity present in forest ecosystems. Some forest species support or rely heavily on particular forest structures, patterns, associations, and processes and can therefore be used to describe the status of genetic diversity in forests as a whole.This indicator uses population trends of selected bird and tree species as a surrogate measure of genetic diversity. Population decreases, especially associated with small populations, can lead to decreases...

Remotely sensed data play a vital role providing auxiliary variables that can improve precision of sample-based estimates without incurring the substantial cost of increasing sample size. In the setting of design-based inference, model-assisted estimators using generalized regression models provide a practical option to exploit such auxiliary variables to obtain estimates with smaller uncertainties than the Horvitz-Thompson (HT) estimator. Spatial heterogeneity is one of the main characteristics of spatial geographical populations and spatial nonstationarity in regression model parameters...

As a forest landowner, you may think about Federal income taxes only when you sell timber. However, many of your forestry activities can have tax implications. Understanding the forest related tax rules and integrating tax planning into your forest management decisions can help increase your after-tax return. New legislation enacted in 2025 reinstates and makes permanent several tax provisions affecting forest landowners and adds new incentives for capital investment. Although many key provisions take effect starting in 2026, some are already effective for the 2025 tax year. This publicatio...

Forest ecosystems in the eastern United States are undergoing significant compositional and demographic shifts. To understand these changes, we used Forest Inventory and Analysis data (2003–2021) to examine landscape-scale trends in the North Carolina Piedmont, focusing on forest type groups, taxonomic family, and species. We assessed metrics such as annual net primary productivity, relative density, and biodiversity, aiming to determine: (i) which forest group types are changing most, (ii) whether these changes extend to higher taxonomic units, and (iii) how stability has shifted over...