Research Database
Displaying 101 - 120 of 126
The Ecology and Management of Moist Mixed-Conifer Forests in Eastern Oregon and Washington: a Synthesis of the Relevant Biophysical Science and Implications for Future Land Management
Year: 2014
Land managers in the Pacific Northwest have reported a need for updated scientific information on the ecology and management of mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Of particular concern are the moist mixed-conifer forests, which have become drought-stressed and vulnerable to high-severity fire after decades of human disturbances and climate warming. This synthesis responds to this need. We present a compilation of existing research across multiple natural resource issues, including disturbance regimes, the legacy effects of past management actions,…
Publication Type: Report
Catchment-scale stream temperature response to land disturbance by wildfire governed by surface–subsurface energy exchange and atmospheric controls
Year: 2014
In 2003, the Lost Creek wildfire severely burned 21,000 hectares of forest on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Seven headwater catchments with varying levels of disturbance (burned, post-fire salvage logged, and unburned) were instrumented as part of the Southern Rockies Watershed Project to measure streamflow, stream temperature, and meteorological conditions. From 2004 to 2010 mean annual stream temperature (Ts) was elevated 0.8–2.1 [1]C in the burned and post-fire salvage logged streams compared to the unburned streams. Mean daily maximum Ts was 1.0–3.0 [1]C warmer and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Climate change vulnerability and adaptation in the North Cascades region, Washington
Year: 2014
The North Cascadia Adaptation Partnership (NCAP) is a science-management partnership consisting of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests and Pacific Northwest Research Station; North Cascades National Park Complex; Mount Rainier National Park; and University of Washington Climate Impacts Group. These organizations worked with numerous stakeholders over 2 years to identify climate change issues relevant to resource management in the North Cascades and to find solutions that will facilitate the transition of the diverse…
Publication Type: Report
Western Spruce Budworm Outbreaks Did Not Increase Fire Risk Over the Last Three Centuries: A Dendrochronological Analysis of Inter-Disturbance Synergism
Year: 2014
Insect outbreaks are often assumed to increase the severity or probability of fire occurrence through increased fuel availability, while fires may in turn alter susceptibility of forests to subsequent insect outbreaks through changes in the spatial distribution of suitable host trees. However, little is actually known about the potential synergisms between these natural disturbances. Assessing inter-disturbance synergism is challenging due to the short length of historical records and the confounding influences of land use and climate changes on natural disturbance dynamics. We used…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Interactions among the mountain pine beetle, fires, and fuels
Year: 2014
Bark beetle outbreaks and wildfires are principal drivers of change in western North American forests, and both have increased in severity and extent in recent years. These two agents of disturbance interact in complex ways to shape forest structure and composition. For example, mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, epidemics alter forest fuels with consequences for the frequency and intensity of wildfires and, conversely, fire injury to trees can promote bark beetle attack and increase beetle populations. Given the great influence these processes have on forest ecosystems, a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire and the Future of Water Supply
Year: 2014
In many parts of the world, forests provide high quality water for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and ecological needs, with water supplies in those regions inextricably linked to forest health. Wildfires have the potential to have devastating effects on aquatic ecosystems and community drinking water supply through impacts on water quantity and quality. In recent decades, a combination of fuel load accumulation, climate change, extensive droughts, and increased human presence in forests have resulted in increases in area burned and wildfire severity—a trend predicted to continue. Thus,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Trust: A Planning Guide for Wildfire Agencies & Practitioners
Year: 2014
In increasing numbers, agency personnel, interest groups, and residents of at-risk communities are coming together to consider wildfire problems and taking steps to solve them. Particularly with regard to fire management, trust among parties is an essential element to successful local programs (Olsen & Shindler 2010, Lachapelle & McCool 2012). Despite a growing body of research literature on this topic, there are few practical guides for fire managers and practitioners about how to build and evaluate trust amongst stakeholders. Our intention here is to bring clarity to the trust…
Publication Type: Report
Fuel treatments and landform modify landscape patterns of burn severity in an extreme fire event
Year: 2014
Under a rapidly warming climate, a critical management issue in semiarid forests of western North America is how to increase forest resilience to wildfire. We evaluated relationships between fuel reduction treatments and burn severity in the 2006 Tripod Complex fires, which burned over 70 000 ha of mixed-conifer forests in the North Cascades range of Washington State and involved 387 past harvest and fuel treatment units. A secondary objective was to investigate other drivers of burn severity including landform, weather, vegetation characteristics, and a recent mountain pine beetle outbreak.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Is fire exclusion in mountain big sagebrush communities prudent? Soil nutrient, plant diversity and arthropod response to burning
Year: 2014
Fire has largely been excluded from many mountain big sagebrush communities. Managers are reluctant to reintroduce fire, especially in communities without significant conifer encroachment, because of the decline in sagebrush-associated wildlife. Given this management direction, a better understanding of fire exclusion and burning effects is needed. We compared burned to unburned plots at six sites in Oregon. Soil nutrient availability generally increased with burning. Plant diversity increased with burning in the first post-burn year, but decreased by the third post-burn year. Burning altered…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Restoring and Managing Mixed Conifer Forests in the PNW
Year: 2013
Many collaborative groups working across the eastside of Oregon and Washington have developed good working agreements on treatments appropriate for ponderosa pine forest types. These groups are actively supporting and helping to develop projects that will meet ecological objectives for dry forests while generating jobs and economic activity in local communities. Currently, there is less agreement on how to approach restoration and management of mixed-conifer forests, in large part because there does not appear to be a comparable scientific consensus as that which exists for ponderosa pine…
Publication Type: Conference Proceedings
Making monitoring count: project design for active adaptive management
Year: 2013
Ongoing environmental change requires that managers develop strategies capable of achieving multiple objectives in an uncertain future. Active adaptive management (AAM) offers a robust approach to reducing uncertainty while also considering diverse stakeholder perspectives. Important features of AAM include recognition of learning as a management objective, integration of monitoring throughout all aspects of project design and implementation, and use of experimental design in project planning. These features facilitate collaborator engagement and adaptive management based on credible…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mapping multiple forest threats in the northwestern United States
Year: 2013
US forestlands are increasingly subject to disturbances including wildfire, insects and disease, and urban and exurban development. Devising strategies for addressing these “forest threats“ depends on anticipating where individual disturbances are most likely and where they might occur in combination. However, many spatial data sets describing forest threats are produced at fine scales but are intended only for coarse-scale planning and policy purposes. We demonstrate one way to combine and display forest threat data at their appropriate spatial scales, using spatial data characterizing…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Conditions favouring Bromus tectorum dominance of endangered sagebrush steppe ecosystems
Year: 2013
Ecosystem invasibility is determined by combinations of environmental variables, invader attributes, disturbance regimes, competitive abilities of resident species and evolutionary history between residents and disturbance regimes. Understanding the relative importance of each factor is critical to limiting future invasions and restoring ecosystems. We investigated factors potentially controlling Bromus tectorum invasions into Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis communities across 75 sites in the Great Basin. We measured soil texture, cattle grazing intensity, gaps among perennial plants…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Restoring & Managing Mixed Conifer Forests in the PNW
Year: 2013
Many collaborative groups working across the eastside of Oregon and Washington have developed good working agreements on treatments appropriate for ponderosa pine forest types. These groups are actively supporting and helping to develop projects that will meet ecological objectives for dry forests while generating jobs and economic activity in local communities. Currently, there is less agreement on how to approach restoration and management of mixed-conifer forests, in large part because there does not appear to be a comparable scientific consensus as that which exists for ponderosa pine…
Publication Type: Report
Building community-agency trust in fire affected communities in Australia and the United States
Year: 2013
As a result of the increasing environmental and social costs of wildfire, fire management agencies face ever-growing complexity in their management decisions and interactions with the public. The success of these interactions with community members may be facilitated through building community–agency trust in the process of providing public input opportunities and community engagement and education activities. Without trust, the public may become frustrated in their interactions with the agency and withhold support for management decisions. This study takes a comparative case approach using…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Dry Forest Zone Maps 2013
Year: 2013
The Dry Forest Investment Zone (DFIZ) is a five-year project to address common natural resource-based economic development challenges through increased networking and capacity building at a regional scale. Sustainable Northwest leads this project in partnership with Wallowa Resources in northeastern Oregon, the Watershed Research and Training Center in northern California, and the Ecosystem Workforce Program at the University of Oregon. The central components of the DFIZ strategy are: 1) To build strong local nonprofit organizations and collaborative processes to achieve forest and economic…
Publication Type: Report
Closing the feedback loop: evaluation and adaptation in collaborative resource management
Year: 2013
This sourcebook provides answers from the field— strategies and tools that some collaborative resource management groups have used to systematically evaluate their work and adapt plans and management actions based on what they have learned. The examples described in this document are drawn from rapid assessments of nine collaborative resource management groups and informed by organizational and social learning, evaluation, and adaptive management concepts.
Publication Type: Report
The Use of Seedbed Modifications and Wood Chips to Accelerate Restoration of Well Pad Sites in Western Colorado, USA
Year: 2012
Semiarid ecosystems of Western North America are experiencing a boom in natural gas development. However, these systems are slow to recover from the disturbances created. The purpose of this study was to develop improved restoration techniques on natural gas well pads in Western Colorado. This study examined effects and interactions of seedbed modifications, soil amendments, seed mixtures, and seeding methods. The experiment was conducted in pinyon-juniper and semidesert shrub plant communities on five natural gas well pads beginning in 2006. Soil and plant cover data were collected to assess…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Bark Beetles and Fire: Two forces of nature transforming western forests
Year: 2012
Bark beetles are chewing a wide swath through forests across North America. Over the past few years, infestations have become epidemic in lodgepole and spruce-fir forests of the Intermountain West. The resulting extensive acreages of dead trees are alarming the public and raising concern about risk of severe fire. Researchers supported by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) are examining the complicated relationship between bark beetles and wildfire, the two most influential natural disturbance agents in these forests. Are the beetles setting the stage for larger, more severe wildfires? And…
Publication Type: Report
A Comprehensive Guide to Fuel Management practices for Dry Mixed Conifer Forests in the Northwestern United States
Year: 2012
This guide describes the benefits, opportunities, and trade-offs concerning fuel treatments in the dry mixed conifer forests of northern California and the Klamath Mountains, Pacific Northwest Interior, northern and central Rocky Mountains, and Utah. Multiple interacting disturbances and diverse physical settings have created a forest mosaic with historically low- to mixed-severity fire regimes. Analysis of forest inventory data found nearly 80 percent of these forests rate hazardous by at least one measure and 20 to 30 percent rate hazardous by multiple measures. Modeled mechanical…
Publication Type: Report