Forest Management Commons^™

Exploring And Testing Wildfire Risk Decision-Making In The Face Of Deep Uncertainty, Bart R. Johnson, Alan A. Ager, Cody Evers, David Hulse, Max Nielsen-Pincus, John P. Bolte

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We integrated a mechanistic wildfire simulation system with an agent-based landscape change model to investigate the feedbacks among climate change, population growth, development, landowner decision-making, vegetative succession, and wildfire. Our goal was to develop an adaptable simulation platform for anticipating risk-mitigation tradeoffs in a fire-prone wildland– urban interface (WUI) facing conditions outside the bounds of experience. We describe how five social and ecological system (SES) submodels interact over time and space to generate highly variable alternative futures even within the same scenario as stochastic elements in simulated wildfire, succession, and landowner decisions create large sets of unique, path-dependent futures for …

Disturbance Refugia Within Mosaics Of Forest Fire, Drought, And Insect Outbreaks, Meg A. Krawchuk, Garrett W. Meigs, Jennifer M. Cartwright, Jonathan D. Coop, Raymond Davis, Andres Holz, Crystal Kolden, Arjan Jh Meddens

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Disturbance refugia – locations that experience less severe or frequent disturbances than the surrounding landscape – provide a framework to highlight not only where and why these biological legacies persist as adjacent areas change but also the value of those legacies in sustaining biodiversity. Recent studies of disturbance refugia in forest ecosystems have focused primarily on fire, with a growing recognition of important applications to land management. Given the wide range of disturbance processes in forests, developing a broader understanding of disturbance refugia is important for scientists and land managers, particularly in the context of anthropogenic climate change. We illustrate …

Fire And Land Cover Change In The Palouse Prairie–Forest Ecotone, Washington And Idaho, Usa, Penelope Morgan, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Eva K. Strand, Stephen C. Bunting, James P. Riser Ii, John T. Abatzoglou, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Mara Johnson

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Prairie–forest ecotones are ecologically important for biodiversity and ecological processes. While these ecotones cover small areas, their sharp gradients in land cover promote rich ecological interaction and high conservation value. Our objective was to understand how historical and current fire occurrences and human development influenced the Palouse Prairie–forest ecotone. We used General Land Office survey field notes about the occurrence of bearing trees to locate historical (1870s to 1880s) prairie, pine savanna, and forest at the eastern edge of the bioregion. We combined LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation classes to contrast historical land cover with current land cover. We reconstructed …

The Fire And Tree Mortality Database, For Empirical Modeling Of Individual Tree Mortality After Fire, C. Alina Cansler, Sharon M. Hood, J. Morgan Varner, Phillip J. Van Mantgem, Michelle C. Agne, Matthew Ayres, Robert A. Andrus, Jonathon D. Bakker, Michael A. Battaglia, Shelby A. Weiss, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wildland fires have a multitude of ecological effects in forests, woodlands, and savannas across the globe. A major focus of past research has been on tree mortality from fire, as trees provide a vast range of biological services. We assembled a database of individual-tree records from prescribed fires and wildfires in the United States. The Fire and Tree Mortality (FTM) database includes records from 164,293 individual trees with records of fire injury (crown scorch, bole char, etc.), tree diameter, and either mortality or top-kill up to ten years post-fire. Data span 142 species and 62 genera, from 409 fires occurring …

Wildland Fire Reburning Trends Across The Us West Suggest Only Short-Term Negative Feedback And Differing Climatic Effects, Brian Buma, Shelby A. Weiss, K. Hayes, Melissa S. Lucash

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wildfires are a significant agent of disturbance in forests and highly sensitive to climate change. Short-interval fires and high severity (mortality-causing) fires in particular, may catalyze rapid and substantial ecosystem shifts by eliminating woody species and triggering conversions from forest to shrub or grassland ecosystems. Modeling and fine-scale observations suggest negative feedbacks between fire and fuels should limit reburn prevalence as overall fire frequency rises. However, while we have good information on reburning patterns for individual fires or small regions, the validity of scaling these conclusions to broad regions like the US West remains unknown. Both the prevalence of reburning …

Economics Of Afforestation: A Global Leadership Opportunity For Efd, Jeffrey R. Vincent

Forest Collaborative Research

Slides from a presentation that examines the economics of afforestation and forest restoration in light of climatic changes, rising CO₂ levels, carbon sequestration and other factors. Provides directions for further research, including retrospective analysis of previous afforestation projects, and targeted analysis of impediments to institutional investment in afforestation.

Forest And Health: China Case, Shilei Liu, Jintao Xu

Forest Collaborative Research

Slides from a presentation that examines the relationship between ecosystem change and human health in China. The authors reviewed data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources to search for links between afforestation, forest protection and human health.

Social Vulnerability To Large Wildfires In The Western Usa, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cody Evers, Michelle A. Day

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Federal land managers in the US can be informed with quantitative assessments of the social conditions of the populations affected by wildfires originating on their administered lands in order to incorporate and adapt their management strategy to achieve a more targeted prioritization of community wildfire protection investments. In addition, these assessments are valuable to socially vulnerable communities for quantifying their exposure to wildfires originating on adjacent land tenures. We assessed fire transmission patterns using fire behavior simulations to understand spatial variations across three diverse study areas (North-central Washington; Central California; and Northern New Mexico) to understand how different land tenures …

Estimating The Present Value Of Carbon Sequestration In U.S. Forests, 2015–2050, For Evaluating Federal Climate Change Mitigation Policies, Robert T. Haight, Randall Bluffstone, Jeffrey D. Kline, John D. Coulston, David N. Wear, Kate Zook

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We demonstrate an application evaluating carbon sequestration benefits from federal policy alternatives. Using detailed forest inventory data, we projected carbon sequestration outcomes in the coterminous 48 states for a baseline scenario and three policy scenarios through 2050. Alternatives included (1) reducing deforestation from development, (2) afforestation in the eastern United States and reforestation in the western United States, and (3) reducing stand-replacing wildfires. We used social cost of carbon estimates to evaluate the present value of carbon sequestration benefits gained with each policy. Results suggest that afforestation and reforestation would provide the greatest marginal increase in carbon benefit, far exceeding …

Four-Fold Increase In Solar Forcing On Snow In Western U.S. Burned Forests Since 1999, Kelly E. Gleason, Joseph R. Mcconnell, Monica M. Arienzo, Nathan Chellman, Wendy M. Calvin

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Forest fires are increasing across the American West due to climate warming and fire suppression. Accelerated snow melt occurs in burned forests due to increased light transmission through the canopy and decreased snow albedo from deposition of light-absorbing impurities. Using satellite observations, we document up to an annual 9% growth in western forests burned since 1984, and 5 day earlier snow disappearance persisting for >10 years following fire. Here, we show that black carbon and burned woody debris darkens the snowpack and lowers snow albedo for 15 winters following fire, using measurements of snow collected from seven forested sites that …

Spatial Factor Models For High-Dimensional And Large Spatial Data: An Application In Forest Variable Mapping, Daniel Taylor-Rodríguez, Andrew O. Finley, Abhirup Datta, Chad Babcock, Hans-Erik Andersen, Bruce D. Cook, Douglas C. Morton, Sudipto Banerjee

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Gathering information about forest variables is an expensive and arduous activity. As such, directly collecting the data required to produce high-resolution maps over large spatial domains is infeasible. Next generation collection initiatives of remotely sensed Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data are specifically aimed at producing complete-coverage maps over large spatial domains. Given that LiDAR data and forest characteristics are often strongly correlated, it is possible to make use of the former to model, predict, and map forest variables over regions of interest. This entails dealing with the high-dimensional (∼10² ) spatially dependent LiDAR outcomes over a large number …

Landscape Drivers Of Recent Fire Activity (2001- 2017) In South-Central Chile, David B. Mcwethy, Aníbal Pauchard, Rafeal García, Andrés Holz, Mauro E. Gonzales, Thomas T. Veblen, Julian Stahl, Bryce Currey

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent decades large fires have affected communities throughout central and southern Chile with great social and ecological consequences. Despite this high fire activity, the controls and drivers and the spatiotemporal pattern of fires are not well understood. To identify the large-scale trends and drivers of recent fire activity across six regions in south-central Chile (~32–40° S Latitude) we evaluated MODIS satellite-derived fire detections and compared this data with Chilean Forest Service records for the period 2001–2017. MODIS burned area estimates provide a spatially and temporally comprehensive record of fire activity across an important bioclimatic transition zone between dry Mediterranean …

Using Transboundary Wildfire Exposure Assessments To Improve Fire Management Programs: A Case Study In Greece, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cody Evers, Kostas Kalabokidis

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Numerous catastrophic wildfires in Greece have demonstrated that relying on fire suppression as the primary risk-management strategy is inadequate and that existing wildfire-risk governance needs to be re-examined. In this research, we used simulation modelling to assess the spatial scale of wildfire exposure to communities and cultural monuments in Chalkidiki, Greece. The study area typifies many areas in Greece in terms of fire regimes, ownership patterns and fire-risk mitigation. Fire-transmission networks were built to quantify connectivity among land tenures and populated places. We found that agricultural and unmanaged wildlands are key land categories that transmit fire exposure to other land …

More Than The Sum Of Its Parts: How Disturbance Interactions Shape Forest Dynamics Under Climate Change, Melissa S. Lucash, Robert M. Scheller, Brian R. Sturtevant, Eric J. Gustafson, Alec M. Kretchun, Jane R. Foster

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interactions among disturbances are seldom quantified, and how they will be affected by climate change is even more uncertain. In this study, we sought to better understand how interactions among disturbances shift under climate change by applying a process-based landscape disturbance and succession model (LANDIS-II) to project disturbance regimes under climate change in north-central Minnesota, USA. Specifically, we (1) contrasted mortality rates and the extent of disturbance for four individual (single) disturbance regimes (fire, insects, wind, or forest management) vs. all four disturbance regimes operating simultaneously (concurrent) under multiple climate change scenarios and (2) determined how climate change interacts with …

The Economic Contribution Of Stewardship Contracting: Two Case Studies From The Mount Hood National Forest, Jean M. Daniels, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Nathan Poage

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We conducted an economic analysis of two case study stewardship contracts on the Mount Hood National Forest in western Oregon. Stewardship contracting has been embraced by some federal managers to achieve restoration goals while providing economic benefits to local communities. Little is known about economic contributions from stewardship contracts, including how they compare against Secure Rural Schools funding or the century-old payments to counties revenue sharing system. Using expenditure data from sale purchasers, contractors, and fiscal agents, we developed methodology to track spending and used IMPLAN software to estimate economic contributions and multipliers. Results showed that (1) commercial thinning, service …

Assessing The Impacts Of Federal Forest Planning On Wildfire Risk Mitigation In The Pacific Northwest, Usa, Alan A. Ager, Michelle A. Day, Karen C. Short, Cody R. Evers

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We analyzed the impact of amenity and biodiversity protection as mandated in national forest plans on the implementation of hazardous fuel reduction treatments aimed at protecting the wildland urban interface (WUI) and restoring fire resilient forests. We used simulation modeling to delineate areas on national forests that can potentially transmit fires to adjacent WUI. We then intersected these areas with national forest planning maps to determine where mechanical treatments are allowed for restoration and fire protection, versus areas where they are prohibited. We found that a large proportion of the national forest lands (79%) can spawn fires that burn adjacent …

Creating Protected Areas On Public Lands: Is There Room For Additional Conservation?, Rodrigo A. Arriagada, Cristian M. Echeverria, Danisa E. Moya

Forest Collaborative Research

Most evaluations of the effectiveness of PAs have relied on indirect estimates based on comparisons between protected and unprotected areas. Such methods can be biased when protection is not randomly assigned. We add to the growing literature on the impact of PAs by answering the following research questions: What is the impact of Chilean PAs on deforestation which occurred between 1986 and 2011? How do estimates of the impact of PAs vary when using only public land as control units? We show that the characteristics of the areas in which protected and unprotected lands are located differ significantly. To satisfactorily …

Climate And Bark Beetle Effects On Forest Productivity — Linking Dendroecology With Forest Landscape Modeling, Alec M. Kretchun, E. Louise Loudermilk, Robert M. Scheller, Matthew Hurteau, Soumaya Belmecher

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

In forested systems throughout the world, climate influences tree growth and aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP). The effects of extreme climate events (i.e., drought) on ANPP can be compounded by biotic factors (e.g., insect outbreaks). Understanding the contribution of each of these influences on growth requires information at multiple spatial scales and is essential for understanding regional forest response to changing climate. The mixed conifer forests of the Lake Tahoe Basin, California and Nevada, provide an opportunity to analyze biotic and abiotic influences on ANPP. Our objective was to evaluate the influence of moisture stress (climatic water deficit, CWD) and …

Forest Park Ecosystems Services Inventory: An Exploratory Study, Pablo Barreyro, Jenny Dempsey Stein

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

This report presents both qualitative and quantitative survey data concerning resident perceptions of ecosystem services in Portland’s Forest Park. Focus group best practices and ecosystem services in urban parks literature are reviewed. Representative focus groups were conducted to ascertain local awareness and understanding of the urban wilderness area’s ecosystem services, identify concurrent challenges and measure interest in a potential interpretive center. Individual surveys were also administered in order to connect issues with demographics and recreational use information. Regression analyses were conducted to examine related park usage, access and economic trends.

While the study is preliminary, the results reveal opportunities for …

Modeling Predator Habitat To Enhance Reintroduction Planning, Shiloh Michael Halsey, William J. Zielinski, Robert M. Scheller

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Context

The success of species reintroduction often depends on predation risk and spatial estimates of predator habitat. The fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a species of conservation concern and populations in the western United States have declined substantially in the last century. Reintroduction plans are underway, but the ability of the species to establish a selfsustaining population is affected by predation from its primary predator, the bobcat (Lynx rufus).

Objectives

To develop a habitat model that incorporates both habitat of the focal species and the spatial patterning of predator habitat. To locate areas of densely aggregated habitat that would be suitable …

Fire Modulates Climate Change Response Of Simulated Aspen Distribution Across Topoclimatic Gradients In A Semi-Arid Montane Landscape, Jian Yang, Peter J. Weisberg, Douglas J. Shinneman, Thomas E. Dilts, Susan L. Earnst, Robert M. Scheller

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Content Changing aspen distribution in response to climate change and fire is a major focus of biodiversity conservation, yet little is known about the potential response of aspen to these two driving forces along topoclimatic gradients.

Objective This study is set to evaluate how aspen distribution might shift in response to different climate-fire scenarios in a semi-arid montane landscape, and quantify the influence of fire regime along topoclimatic gradients.

Methods We used a novel integration of a forest landscape succession and disturbance model (LAN DIS-II) with a fine-scale climatic water deficit approach to simulate dynamics of aspen and associated conifer …

Re-Envisioning Community-Wildfire Relations In The U.S. West As Adaptive Governance, Jesse B. Abrams, Melanie Knapp, Travis B. Paveglio, Autumn Ellison, Cassandra Moseley, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Matthew S. Carroll

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prompted by a series of increasingly destructive, expensive, and highly visible wildfire crises in human communities across the globe, a robust body of scholarship has emerged to theorize, conceptualize, and measure community-level resilience to wildfires. To date, however, insufficient consideration has been given to wildfire resilience as a process of adaptive governance mediated by institutions at multiple scales. Here we explore the possibilities for addressing this gap through an analysis of wildfire resilience among wildland-urban interface communities in the western region of the United States. We re-engage important but overlooked components of social-ecological system resilience by situating rural communities within …

The Community Economic Impacts Of Large Wildfires: A Case Study From Trinity County, California, Emily Jane Davis, Cassandra Moseley, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Pamela J. Jakes

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wildfires are increasing in severity and frequency in the American West, but there is limited understanding of their economic effects at the community level. We conducted a case study of the impacts of large wildfires in 2008 in Trinity County, California, by examining labor market, suppression spending, and qualitative interview data. We found that the 2008 fires had interrelated effects on several economic sectors in the county. Labor market data indicated a decrease in total private-sector employment and wages and an increase in public-sector employment and wages during the summer of 2008 compared to the previous year, while interviews captured …

Climate Change Effects On Northern Great Lake (Usa) Forests: A Case For Preserving Diversity, Matthew Joshua Duveneck, Robert M. Scheller, Mark A. White, Stephen D. Handler, Catherine Ravenscroft

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Under business as usual (BAU) management, stresses posed by climate change may exceed the ability of Great Lake forests to adapt. Temperature and precipitation projections in the Great Lakes region are expected to change forest tree species composition and productivity. It is unknown how a change in productivity and/or tree species diversity due to climate change will affect the relationship between diversity and productivity. We assessed how forests in two landscapes (i.e., northern lower Michigan and northeastern Minnesota, USA) would respond to climate change and explored the diversityproductivity relationship under climate change. In addition, we explored how tree species diversity …

The Design And Use Of Forest Decision Support Systems In The Usa, Sean N. Gordon, Keith M. Reynolds

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Computer-based tools for supporting forest management. The experience and the expertise world-wide answers a call from both the research and the professional communities for a synthesis of current knowledge about the use of computerized tools in forest management planning. According to the aims of the Forest Management Decision Support Systems (FORSYS) (http://fp0804.emu.ee/) this synthesis is a critical success factor to develop a comprehensive quality reference for forest management decision support systems.

The emphasis of the book is on identifying and assessing the support provided by computerized tools to enhance forest management planning in real-world contexts. The book thus identifies the …

Impacts Of Fire And Climate Change On Long-Term Nitrogen Availability And Forest Productivity In The New Jersey Pine Barrens, Melissa S. Lucash, Robert M. Scheller, Alec M. Kretchun, Kenneth L. Clark, John Hom

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increased wildfires and temperatures due to climate change are expected to have profound effects on forest productivity and nitrogen (N) cycling. Forecasts about how wildfire and climate change will affect forests seldom consider N availability, which may limit forest response to climate change, particularly in fire-prone landscapes. The overall objective of this study was to examine how wildfire and climate change affect long-term mineral N availability in a fire-prone landscape. We employed a commonly used landscape simulation model (LANDIS-II) in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a landscape characterized by frequent small fires and fire-resilient vegetation. We found that fire had …

The Effects Of Large Wildfires On Employment And Wage Growth And Volatility In The Western United States, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cassandra Moseley, Krista Gebert

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We examined the effect of large wildfires on economic growth and volatility in the western United States. We matched wildfire data with quarterly employment and earnings growth data to assess the specific effect of wildfire on employment and wage growth in western US counties. Wildfires generally tended to exhibit positive effects on employment and wage growth in the quarter(s) during which suppression efforts were active. However, this effect transitioned to increased economic volatility following a wildfire. The effect of wildfire also varied by the type of county in which wildfire occurred. The amount of suppression costs invested locally had the …

Job Growth And Loss Across Sectors And Time In The Western Us: The Impact Of Large Wildfires, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cassandra Moseley, Krista Gebert

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The link between economic growth and natural hazards has long been studied to better understand the effects of natural hazards on local, regional, and country level growth patterns. However, relatively little generalizable research has focused on wildfires, one of the most common forest disturbances in the western United States (US). We examined the effect of large wildfires on employment growth across sectors and time in the western US.We matched wildfire occurrences from 2004 to 2008 and their duration with monthly employment data to identify the effect of wildfire on employment growth. Wildfires generally tended to exhibit positive effects on employment …

Wood Microsites At Timberline-Alpine Meadow Borders: Implications For Conifer Seedling Regeneration And Alpine Meadow Conifer Invasion, Adelaide C. Johnson, J. Alan Yeakley

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The importance of climate warming on forests is recognized worldwide and has increased attention on the significance of both timberline advance and alpine meadow invasion by forests. Successful seedling regeneration in alpine meadows depends on availability of suitable substrates, or microsites, for seedling establishment. We sought to determine whether wood microsites (i.e., nurse logs), which are regeneration sites in Pacific Northwest subalpine forests, promoted regeneration at timberline-alpine meadow borders. To determine the ecological role of wood microsites, we examined mechanisms forming wood microsites; compared density, survival, and percent nitrogen content of seedlings growing on wood microsites to adjacent soil substrates; …

Empirical Guidelines For Forest Management Decision Support Systems Based On The Past Experiences Of The Expert’S Community, A. F. Marques, A. Ficko, A. Kangas, C. Rosset, F. Ferriti, J. Rasinmaki, T. Packalen, Sean N. Gordon

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Aim of the study: Decision support systems for forest management (FMDSS) have been developed world wide to account for a broad range of forest ecosystems, management goals and organizational frameworks (e.g. the wiki page of the FORSYS project reports 62 existing FMDSSs from 23 countries). The need to enhance the collaboration among this diverse community of developers and users fostered the rise of new group communication processes that could capture useful knowledge from past experiences in order to efficiently provide it to new FMDSS development efforts. Material and methods: This paper presents and tests an exploratory process aiming to identify …