Research Database
Displaying 21 - 40 of 43
Tracking Progress: The Monitoring Process Used in Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Projects in the Pacific Northwest
Year: 2015
Several trends have emerged in recent years that affect the management of the National Forest System, particularly in the western U.S. One is the recognition of landscapes departed from a natural range of variation, especially with implications for wildfire management. Another trend is the economic decline in many rural communities of the western U.S., particularly those based on natural resource activities such as timber production. Finally, there is increasing acceptance of collaborative approaches to forest management. Collaborative approaches endeavor to increase mutual learning among…
Publication Type: Report
Stewarding Forests and Communities: Final Report of the Dry Forest Zone Project
Year: 2014
During the past two decades, land managers and community leaders in the West have adopted sustainable land management methods to make forests healthier, and to maintain profitable local businesses that are beneficial to their communities. However their efforts were often siloed and were not making a big enough impact to offset the vast threat of wildfire and the effects of climate change that are increasingly pressing the region. Nor were these singular efforts being presented to federal lawmakers or agencies that have the need and ability to implement policies to replicate these successes…
Publication Type: Report
Reality Check: Shedding New Light on the Restoration Needs of Mixed-Conifer Forests
Year: 2014
Publication Type: Report
A Land Manager's Guide for Creating Fire-resistant Forests
Year: 2013
This publication provides an overview of how various silvicultural treatments affectfuel and fire behavior, and how to create fire-resistant forests. In properlytreated, fire-resistant forests, fire intensity is reduced and overstory treesare more likely to survive than in untreated forests. Fire-resistant forestsare not “fireproof” – under the right conditions, any forest will burn. Much ofwhat we present here is pertinent to the drier forests of the Pacific Northwest,which have become extremely dense and fire prone
Publication Type: Report
Swiss Needle Cast
Year: 2013
Since the 1990s, there has been an epidemic of SNC affecting hundreds of thousands of acres of coastal Douglas-fir forests in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. This constitutes one of the largest foliage-disease epidemics of conifers in North America. SNC is also a localized problem in many inland areas of the west, especially in Montana, Idaho, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.
Publication Type: Report
Wildfire Suppression Contracting: The Effect of Local Business Capacity During Large Wildfires
Year: 2012
Contracting capacity and local capture can be the result of local economic conditions (supply side conditions) as well as agency contracting practices (demand side conditions). In order to capture contracts locally, local businesses that can perform the work need to exist, and past experience contracting with the federal government is a reasonable indicator of that capacity. To better understand local contracting capacity, we examined how local contract capture varied between wildfires and the relationship between local capture and contracting capacity measures. We investigated how the number…
Publication Type: Report
Climatic, Landform, Microtopographic, and Overstory Canopy Controls of Tree Invasion in a Subalpine Meadow Landscape, Oregon Cascades, USA
Year: 2012
Tree invasions have been documented throughout Northern Hemisphere high elevation meadows, as well as globally in many grass and forb-dominated ecosystems. Tree invasions are often associated with large-scale changes in climate or disturbance regimes, but are fundamentally driven by regeneration processes influenced by interactions between climatic, topographic, and biotic factors at multiple spatial scales. The purpose of this research was to quantify spatiotemporal patterns of meadow invasion; and how climate, larger landforms, topography, and overstory trees have interactively influenced…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Grazing After the Burn
Year: 2012
The rangelands and dry forests of Eastern Washington are considered “disturbance-driven” ecosystems. Disturbances are simply events that disturb normal ecosystem processes: nutrient and water cycling, plant growth and reproduction, animal interactions, etc. While all ecosystems experience some forms of disturbance, areas (like Eastern Washington) with extreme temperature variation, rough topography, scarcity of water, high soils variability, and high fire frequency experience more frequent and more severe disturbance than a Florida swamp forest, for an obvious example. Fire and grazing are…
Publication Type: Report
Effects of Ungulate Herbivory on Aspen, Cottonwood, and Willow Development Under Forest Fuels Treatment Regimes
Year: 2012
Herbivory by domestic and wild ungulates can dramatically affect vegetation structure, composition and dynamics in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem of the world. These effects are of particular concern in forests of western North America, where intensive herbivory by native and domestic ungulates has the potential to substantially reduce or eliminate deciduous, highly palatable species of aspen (Populus tremuloides), cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), and willow (Salix spp.). In turn, differential herbivory pressure may favor greater establishment of unpalatable conifers that serve as ladder…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Developing Socioeconomic Performance Measures for the Watershed Condition Framework
Year: 2012
The purpose of this report is to propose principles and strategies for creating socioeconomic performance measures, as well as identify potential measures that could be integrated into the WCF and other restoration frameworks in the short term. It also recommends a longer-term strategy to develop a social condition assessment and performance accountability system that could be paired with the WCF and terrestrial condition framework currently being developed. Finally, this report identifies potential barriers and challenges to adopting new performance measures, and potential approaches to…
Publication Type: Report
Assessing tree health
Year: 2011
Healthy trees are beneficial to our environment and our property values - but how do we determine if a tree is healthy? This publication briefly discusses common tree health problems and outlines a procedure for assessing tree conditions and getting diagnoses and recommendations from tree health professionals.
Publication Type: Report
Vegetation recovery after fire in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, southern Oregon
Year: 2011
This overview is intended to facilitate decisions regarding forest regeneration in the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion. It summarizes the results of several scientific investigations that took place in the ecoregion. Some of the research occurred in areas without post-fire management, and other research occurred in moderately or intensively managed areas. Some of the research also occurred immediately after a wildfire, and other work occurred several decades later.
Publication Type: Report
Reducing Fire Risk on Your Forest Property
Year: 2010
Whether you own a few acres or thousands, this publication will help you reduce the potential for wildfire damage on your property while improving overall forest health and wildlife habitat. Although these actions won’t prevent a wildfire from coming onto your property, they can make it more fire resistant. In other words, by following the guidelines in this publication you can reduce a fire’s severity so that most trees survive and firefighters are better able to attack and extinguish the blaze. While this publication provides suggestions for making your property more fire-resistant, it does…
Publication Type: Report
Synthesis of Knowledge on the Effects of Fire and Fire Surrogates on Wildlife in U.S. Dry Forests
Year: 2009
Dry forests throughout the United States are fire-dependent ecosystems, and much attention has been given to restoring their ecological function. As such, land managers often are tasked with reintroducing fire via prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and fire-surrogate treatments such as thinning and mastication. During planning, managers frequently are expected to anticipate effects of management actions on wildlife species. This document represents a synthesis of existing knowledge on wildlife responses to fire and fire-surrogate treatments, presented in a useful, management-relevant format…
Publication Type: Report
Synthesis of Knowledge on the Effects of Fire and Thinning Treatments on Understory Vegetation in U.S. Dry Forests
Year: 2009
The results of this synthesis illustrate several important lessons. First, current forest structure is the result of decades of fire-suppression activities, and so restoration will require multiple treatments to bring forests to within the range of historic variation. Second, while the treatments discussed in this document generally increased native plant responses, the same treatments also increased exotic plant response. Therefore, to avoid spread of exotic plant species, it is important to consider the context of the treatment area, (e.g., nearby roads, wildland urban interface, previous…
Publication Type: Report
Pruning
Year: 2008
Pruning is removing the lower branches of trees. Increasing the distance between the ground and the lowest tree branches reduces the likelihood that a fire on the ground will use the branches as a ladder to move into tree crowns. A crown fire is more difficult to control and can advance much more rapidly than a surface fire, under certain weather conditions.Pruning is a particularly effective fuels-reduction technique when combined with other forms of treatment such as thinning.
Publication Type: Report
Thinning
Year: 2008
Thinning is one of the most powerful forest management tools available to landowners for achieving a wide range of goals and objectives. Thinning influences: Trees’ growth rates and potential economic value Which species of trees and other plants will be in the stand Trees’ resistance to insects and disease Quality of wildlife habitat Forage production The stand’s aesthetic appearance Another, very important effect is that thinning increases a forest’s ability to survive wildfire.Thinning is: Removing trees that, if left in the stand, could increase fire risk and could lessen stand vigor (for…
Publication Type: Report