Life Sciences Commons^™

Planning For Future Fire: Scenario Analysis Of An Accelerated Fuel Reduction Plan For The Western United States, Alan A. Ager, Cody Evers, Michelle A. Day, Fermin J. Alcasena, Rachel Houtman

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent fire seasons brought a new fire reality to the western US, and motivated federal agencies to explore scenarios for augmenting current fuel management and forest restoration in areas where fires might threaten critical resources and developed areas. To support this effort, we modeled the scheduling of an accelerated forest and fuel management scenario on 76 western US national forests. Specifically, we modeled a 10-year ramp up of current forest and fuel management that targeted the source of wildfire exposure to developed areas and simulated treatment in areas that accounted for 77% of the predicted exposure. We used a sample …

What Is Biochar And How Is It Used?, Marion Murray

All Current Publications

Biochar is a charcoal-like product that contains no petroleum. It is made by heating biomass such as herbaceous or woody crop residues, non-salvageable timber, and slash, or animal manure, in a contained system. There are many potential uses for biochar including water treatment, land reclamation, and carbon sequestration. Biochar may also be used as a soil amendment for two purposes – to improve plant health and to store carbon.

A Model Of Coppice Biomass Recovery For Mallee-Form Eucalypts, Kim Brooksbank, Adrian Goodwin Mr

Journal articles

Planting mallee-form eucalypts amongst crops has the potential to remedy environmental degradation caused by land clearing in low rainfall regions, whilst also providing income through carbon-sequestration or periodic coppicing. Management options can be supported by models of biomass and coppice recovery, and this paper presents the first empirical coppice growth model for mallee eucalypts.

Uncoppiced and coppiced belt-planted Eucalyptus polybractea, E. loxophleba and E. kochii were harvested and roots excavated to provide estimates of shoot and root biomass for analysis and model development. Allometric models of shoot biomass were appropriate for both uncoppiced and coppiced trees, but models of …

Informing Sustainable Urban Forestry Policy With Carbon Sequestration Analysis, Ellen Danford

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Urban forestry is an environmental solution for an increasingly city-centered world. The ecosystem services that trees provide in natural settings, including carbon sequestration, oxygen production and aesthetic beauty, also apply in urban settings. Every tree in the Western Kentucky University (WKU) urban forest provides these services and each tree was measured to determine how much carbon they sequestered a year on average between 2015 and 2020. With an interactive map of the forest and its carbon sequestration, the condition of the forest and change over the five year period was analyzed. Comparing the welfare of the forest with the plans …

Functional Fingerprinting Estimates Renewal Opportunities For Tree Species In A Mixed Turkey Oak Forest, Éva Salamon Albert, Ágnes Csiszár, Dénes Bartha

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Maintaining and managing trees with different ecological plasticity under climate conditions aggravated by short-term variability are major challenges for foresters. Our aims were to investigate species-specific ecophysiological responses of canopy trees in a mixed Turkey oak forest during their early-phase regeneration. We measured plant carbon and water exchange with portable IRGA equipment under natural field conditions (canopy gap) and in a climate-controlled (standardized) environment. We analyzed variability and differences in plant gas exchange in relation to important abiotic site parameters and the species. Assimilation, stomatal conductance, and intrinsic water use were applied as calibrating parameters for plant functional fingerprinting to …