Forest Sciences Commons^™

The Potential Of Forest Biomass Inversion Based On Vegetation Indices Using Multi-Angle Chris/Proba Data, Qiang Wang, Yong Pang, Zengyuan Li, Guoqing Sun, Erxue Chen, Wenge Ni-Meister

Publications and Research

Multi-angle remote sensing can either be regarded as an added source of uncertainty for variable retrieval, or as a source of additional information, which enhances variable retrieval compared to traditional single-angle observation. However, the magnitude of these angular and band effects for forest structure parameters is difficult to quantify. We used the Discrete Anisotropic Radiative Transfer (DART) model and the Zelig model to simulate the forest canopy Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Factor (BRDF) in order to build a look-up table, and eight vegetation indices were used to assess the relationship between BRDF and forest biomass in order to find the sensitive …

Systems Thinking In The Forest Service: A Framework To Guide Practical Application For Social-Ecological Management In The Enterprise Program, Megan Kathleen Kmon

Dissertations and Theses

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Enterprise Program (EP), which provides fee-for-service consulting services to the USFS, is interested in integrating systems thinking into its service offerings. Despite there being several excellent sources on the range and diversity of systems thinking, no single framework exists that thoroughly yet concisely outlines what systems thinking is along with its deep history, theoretical tenets, and soft and hard approaches. This thesis is an attempt to create such a framework, aimed specifically at practical application in a land management agency, through literature synthesis injected with original analysis. The usefulness of the framework is then tested …

Activated Carbon Derived From Pyrolyzed Pinewood Char Using Elevated Temperature, Koh, H3po4, And H2o2., Yan Luo, Jason T. Street, Philip H. Steele, Edward D. Entsminger, Vamshi K. Guda

CFR Publications

Activated carbon was prepared from pyrolyzed pinewood char using KOH, H3PO4, H2O2, and heat-only treatments. Activated carbon prepared by the heat-only treatment had a total surface area of 233.2 m2/g, a total pore volume of 0.138 cm3/g, a microporous surface area of 129.9 m2/g, and a microporous volume of 0.07 cm3/g. The most significant improvement of pore properties for the chemically treated pinewood char was obtained by the KOH treatment, which produced a total surface area of 1124.4 m2/g, a total pore volume of 0.723 cm3/g, a microporous surface area of 923.6 m2/g, and a microporous volume of 0.485 cm3/g. …

Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 245 million acres of our public lands and yet, for most of our nation's history, these lands seemed largely destined to end up in private hands. Even when the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ushered in an important era of better managing public grazing districts and "promoting the highest use of the public lands," such use of our public lands still was plainly considered temporary, "pending its final disposal." It was not until 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that congress adopted a policy that …

Slides: Flpma In Its Historical Context, John D. Leshy

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

Presenter: John D. Leshy, Sunderland Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, U.C. Hastings College of the Law

36 slides

This session traces the history of FLPMA including, among other things, its legislative, administrative, and historical antecedents, including for example, the Public Land Law Review Commission’s 1970 report, One Third of Our Nation’s Lands. It then considers FLPMA’s unique public lands policies and requirements and how they are reflected in the BLM’s management of public lands today.

See: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/contents.htm

The Variation Of Productivity And Its Allocation Along A Tropical Elevation Gradient: A Whole Carbon Budget Perspective, Yadvinder Malhi, Cécile A. J. Girardin, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Christopher E. Doughty, Norma Salinas, Daniel B. Metcalfe, Walter Huaraca Huasco, Javier E. Silva-Espejo, Jhon Del Aguilla-Pasquell, Filio Farfán Amézquita, Luiz E.O.C. Aragão, Rossella Guerrieri, Françoise Yoko Ishida, Nur Bahar, William Farfan-Rios, Oliver L. Phillips, Patrick Meir, Miles Silman

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

• Why do forest productivity and biomass decline with elevation? To address this question, research to date generally has focused on correlative approaches describing changes in woody growth and biomass with elevation.
  
  
• We present a novel, mechanistic approach to this question by quantifying the autotrophic carbon budget in 16 forest plots along a 3300 m elevation transect in Peru.
  
  
• Low growth rates at high elevations appear primarily driven by low gross primary productivity (GPP), with little shift in either carbon use efficiency (CUE) or allocation of net primary productivity (NPP) between wood, fine roots and canopy. The lack of trend in …

Meeting Minutes, October 19th, 2016, National Smokejumper Association Board Of Directors

National Smokejumper Association Meeting Minutes

Agenda: Call to order.; Introductions.; Approval of the agenda.; Approval of previous meeting minutes.; Scholarship program update with review of applicant criteria.; Report on 2015 Trails Program.; The Smokey Generation website and photo gallery.; Traveling Smokejumper display.; Membership Report.; Good Samaritan Fund report.; Deputy Director of Fire & Aviation, USFS.; Injury data for this year not completed.; Website Committee update.; Budget Report of 2015-16 1St quarter Budget.; Hotshot Association.; Investment Committee report.; Merchandise report-future.; Report on Directors & Officer Liability Insurance.; Wildland Firefighters Foundation on museum/interpretive center.; Policy, practice and accountability for fundraising projects.; Evaluation of our Facebook presence.; reconvene.; …

Useful To Usable: Developing Usable Climate Science For Agriculture, Linda S. Prokopy, J Stuart Carlton, Tonya Haigh, Maria Carmen Lemos, Amber Saylor Mase, Melissa Widhalm

Department of Forestry & Natural Resources Faculty Publications

The Useful to Usable (U2U) project was a six-year research and extension project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide both useful and usable climate information for the agricultural (corn) sector in the Midwestern United States. The project adopted an extensive co-production of knowledge and decision-making approach that involved intense iteration with potential end-users, including farmers and a variety of pro- fessional agricultural advisors, through focus groups and surveys, feedback at outreach events, and frequent informal interactions to develop both decision support tools and delivery mechanisms that met stakeholder needs. This overview paper for this special issue …

Critical Review Of The Millennium Project In Nepal, Ashma Vaidya, Audrey L. Mayer

College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science Publications

“Our Common Future” harmonized development policies around a new sustainable development (SD) paradigm, and experts also emphasize the importance of a democratic and equitable approach to define and achieve sustainable development. However, SD targets and indicators are often defined by a suite of experts or a few stakeholder groups, far removed from on-the-ground conditions. The most common expert-led development framework, the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), promoted one set of targets and indicators for all developing countries. While progress towards these targets was routinely reported at the national scale, these targets may not reflect context-specific sustainable development. We evaluated …

Assisted Tree Migration In North America: Policy Legacies, Enhanced Forest Policy Integration, And Climate Change Adaptation, Adam Wellstead, Michael Howlett

Department of Social Sciences Publications

The weight of much expert forest management opinion is that issues such as climate change can be effectively addressed only if forest policy-making moves from a purely sectoral focus and undergoes a shift to a more integrated multi-issue, multi-sector policy-making process. This is because credible adaptation policies in the sector require greatly enhanced multi-sectoral policy integration if they are to succeed. But this requirement may be beyond the capacity of many countries to deliver. This article explores the integration challenges faced by forest policy-making in Canada and the United States and uses the case of Assisted Tree Migration (ATM) to …

Rapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection And Robust Random Forest Classifiersrapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection And Robust Random Forest Classifiers, Konrad J. Wassels, Frans Van Den Bergh, David P. Roy, Brian P. Salmon, Karen C. Steenkemp, Bryan Macalister, Derick Swanepoel, Debbie Jewitt

GSCE Faculty Publications

The paper evaluated the Landsat Automated Land Cover Update Mapping (LALCUM) system designed to rapidly update a land cover map to a desired nominal year using a pre-existing reference land cover map. The system uses the Iteratively Reweighted Multivariate Alteration Detection (IRMAD) to identify areas of change and no change. The system then automatically generates large amounts of training samples (n > 1 million) in the no-change areas as input to an optimized Random Forest classifier. Experiments were conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa using a reference land cover map from 2008, a change mask between 2008 and …

The Importance Of Rivers In Protected Areas: Macroinvertebrate Sampling Reveals The Impact Of Humans And Highways On Water Quality, Marie-Claire Harrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The water quality and level of contamination of two rivers in a cloud forest ecosystem in the Mejía region of Ecuador, the Tupí River and the Pilatón River were assessed through benthic macroinvertebrate sampling at various sites along the rivers. Many different biological indices were then used to assess water quality at each site. Pollution in the form of grey water, black water, and petroleum negatively impacted the water quality of the both rivers as they pass through the town of La Esperie. Differences in river structure and size also played a role in determining the prevalence of certain benthic …

Arboretum Annual Report 2015-2016, Glenn Dreyer

Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Secretarial Order 3336 Science Priorities: The Role Of Science Past, Present, And Future, Stephen W. Barrett

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Within sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems, which are home to more than 350 species of plants and animals, potentially more frequent and severe fires are causing an increased threat to human safety, property, rural economies, and wildlife habitat. In particular, the habitat of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), an iconic sagebrush-dependent species, is at risk. In response to this reality, on January 15, 2015, Secretary Sally Jewell signed Secretarial Order 3336 (S.O. 3336), titled “Rangeland Fire Prevention, Management, and Restoration.” The main purpose of the order is to implement enhanced policies and strategies for managing rangeland fire and …

Shrub Consumption And Immediate Changes In Shrub Community And Spatial Patterns By Reintroduced Fire In Yosemite National Park, California, Usa; Supplemental Information, J. A. Lutz, T. J. Furniss, S. J. Germain, K. M. L. Becker, E. M. Blomdahl, S. A. Jeronimo, C. A. Cansler, J. A. Freund, M. E. Swanson, A. J. Larson

Browse all Datasets

Fire behavior in the Yosemite Forest Dynamics Plot during the Rim Fire as captured by the USFS Fire Behavior Assessment Team and reported in Ewell, C., D.F. Smith, M. Hilden, S. Greene, D. Coultrap, K. Robinson, N. Vaillant, A. Reiner, T. Norman. 2015. 2013 Rim Fire Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park Fire Behavior Assessment Team Summary Report. Each video was started based on a thermocouple trigger when the fire reached it.

The Ico Approach To Quantifying And Restoring Forest Spatial Pattern: Implementation Guide, Derek J. Churchill, Sean Ma Jeronimo, Andrew J. Larson, Paul Fischer, Matt C. Dahlgreen, Jerry F. Franklin

ICO App

This document is intended as a “How To” guide for managers and stakeholders wishing to implement the Individual, Clumps, and Openings (ICO) method for silvicultural prescriptions and/or monitoring. This guide is organized into stand-alone chapters. Managers should read and use chapters as they find useful to their own needs.

Ico-Mark Version 1.3, Sean Ma Jeronimo, Derek J. Churchill

ICO App

ICO Mark is a tablet- and phone-based application (app) developed for forest managers and forestry field crews to spatially monitor and map forest structure. ICO Mark relies on the Individuals-Clumps- Openings approach to characterizing dry forest spatial patterning, where forests are composed of varying proportions and sizes of individual trees, clumps of trees, and treeless openings. ICO Mark allows users to track individual trees and clumps for both marking pre-harvest, and for monitoring conditions post-harvest.

Ico-Mark App Users Guide - Version 1.3, Sean Ma Jeronimo, Emily J. Fales

ICO App

This is the user's guide for the ICO Mark app.

ICO Mark is a tablet- and phone-based application (app) developed for forest managers and forestry field crews to spatially monitor and map forest structure. ICO Mark relies on the Individuals-Clumps-Openings approach to characterizing dry forest spatial patterning, where forests are composed of varying proportions and sizes of individual trees, clumps of trees, and treeless openings. ICO Mark allows users to track individual trees and clumps for both marking pre-harvest, and for monitoring conditions post-harvest.

Evaluation Des Impacts Sociaux Et Ecologiques De La Gestion Communautaire De La Forêt D’Analabe, Nicole Israel-Meyer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Le transfert de gestion des forêts de l’Etat vers les communautés locales est l’une des approches que le gouvernement malgache a implémentées pour à la fois conserver la biodiversité locale et continuer le développement rural. Cette étude cherche à comprendre les impacts sociaux et écologiques de la gestion communautaire de la forêt d’Analabe par le VOI Fanarenana. La forêt d’Analabe se trouve dans le secteur d’Antanandava du district Majunga II dans le nord-ouest du pays. En utilisant une méthodologie mixte, l’étude a exposé que dans les trois ans d’opération du VOI Fanarenana, la forêt est plus saine et la majorité …

Partitioning Controls On Amazon Forest Photosynthesis Between Environmental And Biotic Factors At Hourly To Interannual Timescales, Jin Wu, Kaiyu Guan, Matthew Hayek, Natalia Restrepo-Coupe, Kenia T. Wiedemann, Xiangtao Xu, Richard Wehr, Bradley O. Christoffersen, Guofang Miao, Rodrigo Da Silva

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) in tropical forests varies both with the environment and with biotic changes in photosynthetic infrastructure, but our understanding of the relative effects of these factors across timescales is limited. Here, we used a statistical model to partition the variability of seven years of eddy covariance-derived GEP in a central Amazon evergreen forest into two main causes: variation in environmental drivers (solar radiation, diffuse light fraction, and vapor pressure deficit) that interact with model parameters that govern photosynthesis and biotic variation in canopy photosynthetic light-use efficiency associated with changes in the parameters themselves. Our fitted model was …

Exome Genotyping, Linkage Disequilibrium And Population Structure In Loblolly Pine (Pinus Taeda L.), Mengmeng Lu, Konstantin V. Krutovsky, Charles Dana Nelson, Tomasz E. Koralewski, Thomas D. Byram, Carol A. Loopstra

Forest Health Research and Education Center Faculty Publications

Background: Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) is one of the most widely planted and commercially important forest tree species in the USA and worldwide, and is an object of intense genomic research. However, whole genome resequencing in loblolly pine is hampered by its large size and complexity and a lack of a good reference. As a valid and more feasible alternative, entire exome sequencing was hence employed to identify the gene-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and to genotype the sampled trees.

Results: The exons were captured in the ADEPT2 association mapping population of 375 clonally-propagated loblolly pine trees using …

Smokejumper Obituary: Wilson, Paul A. (Missoula 1950), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Failure To Communicate: Inefficiencies In Voluntary Incentive Programs For Private Forest Owners In Michigan, Mark. D. Rouleau, Jennifer F. Lind-Riehl, Miranda N. Smith, Audrey L. Mayer

College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science Publications

Coordinating forest management across thousands of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners is a difficult yet necessary task for state land management agencies. Voluntary Incentive Programs (VIPs) can coordinate the decentralized activities of these owners in return for services or financial incentives. However, many VIPs typically have low enrollment. Our study investigates the implementation of VIPs to increase forest management coordination among NIPFs in Michigan. We present findings from 20 semi-structured interviews with leaders of state and local land management organizations, and government officials at state natural resource agencies, and contrast their answers with those recorded from 37 interviews of NIPF …

Economic Contribution Of The Agricultural Sector To The Arkansas Economy In 1997-2014, Leah English, Jennie Popp, Wayne Miller

AAES Research Reports and Research Bulletins

Agricultural production, processing, and retail industries are major contributors to the Arkansas economy in terms of GDP. Agriculture contributes to the economy through direct agricultural production, value-added processing, and agricultural retail activities.

Timber Talk, Vol. 54, No. 3, September 2016

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Lumber Market Reports 1

Hardwood Lumber Prices 2

Green Star Gasifier Seeking Wood Fuel 3

Emerald Ash Borer Discovered in Eastern Nebraska 4

Nebraska Forest Industry Spotlight 5

Timber Sales 7

Trading Post 8

Riparian Fuel Treatments In The Western Usa: Challenges And Considerations, Kathleen A. Dwire, Kristen E. Meyer, Gregg Riegel, Timothy Burton

Joint Fire Science Program Synthesis Reports

Fuel reduction treatments are being conducted throughout watersheds of the western United States to reduce hazardous fuels in efforts to decrease the risk of high-severity fire. The number of fuel reduction projects that include near-stream environments is increasing, bringing new challenges to riparian management. Riparian areas are protected by administrative regulations, some of which are largely custodial and restrict active management. However, riparian areas have also been affected by fire suppression, land use, and human disturbance, so manipulative treatments of vegetation and other fuels may be needed in some locations to maintain riparian biodiversity and restore valued functions. This report …

Smokejumper Obituary: Black, Otho (Missoula 1950), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Smokejumper Obituary: Mcneill, Gary Richard "Sam" (Missoula 1957), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Prescribed Fires On Vernal Herbs, Janis Lemaster

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The effects of fire on vernal herbs are little known. David Kem attempted to assess the influences of spring and winter prescribed fires on vernal herbs by collecting abundance data on three sets of research plots located at the WKU Green River Preserve in Hart County, KY, on April 9-10, 2010. On April 10 he conducted spring burns, and on February 22, 2011, he conducted winter burns. He then collected post-fire data on the abundance of the herbs on the 12-19 of March, 2011. He found little influence of fire on overall species richness and the density of common species. …

Natural Establishment Of Earthworms On Reclaimed Lignite Mine Soils, Lacey Russell, Kenneth Farrish, Jerry Leon Young, George Damoff, Brian Oswald

Student Publications

This two-year field study surveyed earthworm community characteristics on a chronosequence under afforested pine and hardwood lignite mine soils at the Beckville and Oak Hill lignite coal mines in east Texas. The following were used as indicators of earthworm community characteristics: reclamation type, forest cover type, age since reclamation and physical and chemical soil properties. The Beckville mine was sampled from February 2012 through March 2013; the Oak Hill mine was sampled from April 2013 through March 2014. The study was a 2x2x3 factorial design with reclamation type (mixed overburden vs. haul back), cover-type ((pine plantation (pp) and mixed pine …