Erica Smithwick - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Erica Smithwick

Ecology and Society, Dec 31, 2022

Addressing contemporary environmental and social crises requires solutions-based, systems-level c... more Addressing contemporary environmental and social crises requires solutions-based, systems-level changes. To achieve these changes, transdisciplinary research approaches are needed to align problem framing with solution deployment at landscape scales. However, practical frameworks to guide this work are lacking. Here we propose a new framework to help bridge this gap: regenerative landscape design (RLD). We define RLD as a process for finding pattern-based solutions, emphasizing cooperative, iterative, and facilitated engagement for the co-production of locally relevant knowledge for desirable landscape stewardship. To do so, we review how key components of RLD (e.g., landscapes, design thinking, and regenerative processes) have been differentially and unevenly applied in disciplines ranging from resilience, landscape ecology, geography, architecture, agriculture, sociology, tourism, and more. We then put forward research considerations of a RLD approach to enhance social and environmental well-being. We use two emerging case studies (i.e., Chesapeake Bay Watershed, Pennsylvania, USA and Narok County, Kenya) to put forward pathways for implementation of the RLD strategy.

Journal of Environmental Management

Journal of Geography

Abstract Two forms of interactive video were assessed in an online course focused on conservation... more Abstract Two forms of interactive video were assessed in an online course focused on conservation. The hypothesis was that interactive video enhances student perceptions about learning and improves mental models of social-ecological systems. Results showed that students reported greater learning and attitudes toward the subject following interactive video. Moreover, metrics of network complexity applied to students' concept maps of socio-ecological systems increased longitudinally through the course highlighting greater awareness of socio-ecological linkages. We conclude that interactive video can increase awareness of interdisciplinary connections in socio-ecological systems and should be more widely employed in general education geography courses.

This file contains the raw data used to construct multivariate indices of headwater wetland condi... more This file contains the raw data used to construct multivariate indices of headwater wetland condition. Indices were constructed from soil property information that has been shown to have a strong relationship with wetland microbial community biomass and composition. These data were the basis of the analyses conducted in: Fine-scale spatial homogenization of microbial habitats: a multivariate index of headwater wetland complex condition

Society & Natural Resources, 2020

In the mid-Atlantic region, prescribed fire is as an important tool for natural resource managers... more In the mid-Atlantic region, prescribed fire is as an important tool for natural resource managers to achieve a variety of outcomes, including the management of wildlife habitat and wildfire risk reduction. However, little research has been conducted in this region to help inform managers about public perceptions and acceptance of prescribed fire. In this research, data from intercept surveys of hunter and non-hunters on public lands in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are used to compare perceptions of perceived costs, benefits, and ikelihood of outcomes for these groups related to prescribed fire. Results show that hunters generally had lower levels of perceived costs and likelihood of negative outcomes from prescribed fire than non-hunters. From this, managers using prescribed fire in these areas can better understand public perceptions, differences among recreation users, and possibly better communicate about using prescribed fire as a tool for managing resources.

Collaboration Across Boundaries for Social-Ecological Systems Science, 2019

We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under c... more We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under climate change. Our project is a partnership with members of the Menominee Nation, a Tribal Nation located in northern Wisconsin, United States. We use immersive virtual experiences, translated from ecosystem model outcomes, to elicit human values about future forest conditions under alternative scenarios. Our project combines expertise across the sciences and humanities as well as across cultures and knowledge systems. Our management structure, governance, and leadership behaviors have both fostered and constrained our work and must be continuously responsive to changing group dynamics. Our project presents opportunities for substantial contributions to society, including insights and knowledge about complementary ways of knowing, skills training, and professional development, and opportunities for reflexive learning about effective transdisciplinary, translational, and transformative scientific processes.

Background/Question/Methods Urban runoff management has been practiced from antiquity, but its im... more Background/Question/Methods Urban runoff management has been practiced from antiquity, but its implementation in the last few centuries has emphasized subsurface engineering-based methods of runoff conveyance, often to the detriment of ecological systems. However, some recent planning approaches to urban runoff have moved to consider ecological structure and function at several scales to supplement subsurface conveyance systems. These new approaches – collectively termed green infrastructure– leverage low-impact design (LID) urban planning methods (e.g. bioswales and green roofs) and are driven by increasing regulatory pressures to supplement existing runoff management systems in both established and rapidly growing cities. Results/Conclusions We model a green infrastructure matrix for a municipal-level community for runoff capture using the EPA’s System for Urban Stormwater Treatment and Analysis INtegration (SUSTAIN) application. Results show the runoff capture capacity optimized ...

ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Integration of disturbance patterns into carbon (C) flux est... more ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Integration of disturbance patterns into carbon (C) flux estimates to improve terrestrial-atmosphere C exchange is a critical priority for the North American Carbon Program. This project is built upon previous finding from The Chequamegon Ecosystem Atmospheric Study and aims to quantify uncertainty in C flux upscaling due to disturbance and seasonality, evaluate multiple disturbance stressors, and develop two-way communication channels between federal agencies and scientists. This project asks three main questions: (1) Does incorporation of variation in physiological model parameters improve seasonal and interannual CO2 flux hindcasts from eddy flux towers? (2) Does incorporation of stand-replacement and partial disturbance processes from remotely sensed observations improve yearly to decadal CO2 flux hindcasts from eddy flux towers? and (3) To what degree does model-data integration aid regional and landscape decision-making for forest C storage management? Results/Conclusions We show that parameter and prediction uncertainty in terrestrial C upscaling increases with increasing stand age with a slight decline at the end of the stand age spectrum (old stands). The maps of regional C fluxes and uncertainty under different management scenario are of interest to the park managers. The finding from this project directly contribute to national efforts to constrain uncertainty in terrestrial-atmospheric C exchange in several important ways. First, it utilizes a new disturbance algorithms using Landsat imagery to test whether inclusion of partial and stand-replacing disturbance reduces uncertainty in C flux upscaling. Second, it employs a computationally tractable but responsive photosynthetic model to evaluate whether a more sophisticated parameterization of plant physiology aids temporal diagnosis of C flux estimates. Third, by collaborating with regional and national Forest Service personnel, this project partially addresses the ‘end-to-end’ problem of C cycle science by helping managers to diagnose adaptive capacity of forested landscapes, target locations, and prioritize C management activities.

Landscape Ecology, 2019

Context Resilience is a concept central to the field of ecology, but our understanding of resilie... more Context Resilience is a concept central to the field of ecology, but our understanding of resilience is not sufficient to predict when and where large changes in species composition might occur following disturbances, particularly under climate change. Objectives Our objective was to estimate how wind disturbance shapes landscape-level patterns of engineering resilience, defined as the recovery of total biomass and species composition after a windstorm, under climate change in central Wisconsin. Methods We used a spatially-explicit, forest simulation model (LANDIS-II) to simulate how windstorms and climate change affect forest succession and used boosted regression tree analysis to isolate the important drivers of resilience. Results At mid-century, biomass fully recovered to current conditions, but neither biomass nor species composition completely recovered at the end of the century. As expected, resilience was lower in the south, but by the end of the century, resilience was low throughout the landscape. Disturbance and species' characteristics (e.g., the amount of area disturbed and the number of species) explained half of the variation in resilience, while temperature and soil moisture comprised only 17% collectively. Conclusions Our results illustrate substantial spatial patterns of resilience at landscape scales, while documenting the potential for overall declines in resilience through time. Species diversity and windstorm size were far more important than temperature and soil moisture in driving long term trends in resilience. Finally, our research highlights the utility of using machine learning (e.g., boosted regression trees) to discern the underlying mechanisms of landscape-scale processes when using complex spatially-interactive and non-deterministic simulation models. Keywords Climate change Á Windstorms Á Resilience Á Forest simulation model Á LANDIS-II

Ecosystems, 2021

Emerald ash borer (EAB; Agrilus planipennis Farimaire) has been found in 35 US states and five Ca... more Emerald ash borer (EAB; Agrilus planipennis Farimaire) has been found in 35 US states and five Canadian provinces. This invasive beetle is causing widespread mortality to ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), which are an important timber product and ornamental tree, as well as a cultural resource for some Tribes. The damage will likely continue despite efforts to impede its spread. Further, widespread and rapid ash mortality as a result of EAB is expected to alter forest composition and structure, especially when coupled with the regional effects of climate change in post-ash forests. Thus, we forecasted the long-term effects of EAB-induced ash mortality and preemptive ash harvest (a forest management mitigation strategy) on forested land across a 2-million-hectare region in northern Wisconsin. We used a spatially explicit and spatially interactive forest simulation model, LANDIS-II, to estimate future species dominance and biodiversity assuming continued widespread ash mortality. We ran fore...

Disturbances influence vegetation patterns at multiple scales, but studies that isolate the effec... more Disturbances influence vegetation patterns at multiple scales, but studies that isolate the effect of scale are rare, meaning that scale and process are often confounded. To explore this, we imposed a large (~3.75 ha) experiment in a South African coastal grassland ecosystem to determine the spatial scale of grass response to nutrient additions. In two of six 60 x 60 m grassland plots, we imposed nutrient additions using a scaled sampling design in which fertilizer was added in replicated sub-plots of varying sizes (1 x 1 m, 2 x 2 m, and 4 x 4 m). The remaining plots either received no additions, or were fertilized evenly across the entire plot area. We calculated empirical semi-variograms for all plots one year following nutrient additions to determine whether the scale of grass response (biomass and nutrient concentrations) corresponded to the scale of the sub-plot additions and compared these results to reference plots (unfertilized or unscaled). In addition, we calculated semi-v...

Remote Sensing, 2019

Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) affects many natural processes and is an important component of en... more Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) affects many natural processes and is an important component of environmental modeling, but it is expensive and challenging to monitor for relatively small spatial extents. Satellite datasets offer ample spatial coverage of near-surface soil moisture content at up to a daily time-step, but satellite-derived data products are currently too coarse in spatial resolution to use directly for many environmental applications, such as those for small catchments. This study investigated the use of passive microwave satellite soil moisture data products in a simple hydrologic model to provide root zone soil moisture estimates across a small catchment over a two year time period and the Eastern U.S. (EUS) at a 1 km resolution over a decadal time-scale. The physically based soil moisture analytical relationship (SMAR) was calibrated and tested with the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSRE), Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS), and Soil Moisture Active Pas...

The AAG Review of Books, 2019

Carbon Management, 2019

Indigenous forests represent South Africa's smallest biome, yet they are critical spaces for alig... more Indigenous forests represent South Africa's smallest biome, yet they are critical spaces for aligning sustainable development goals with carbon mitigation activities and conservation. The objectives of this study were to quantify the productivity and biodiversity of coastal lowland forests in the Dwesa Cwebe nature reserve in the Eastern Cape Province and characterize how estimates differed among alternative allometric equations. Using a complete tree census across six plots in the reserve, a total of 1489 trees were inventoried in 2011 and again in 2016. Aboveground tree carbon averaged 99.8 Mg C ha À1 (range 77.2-126.9 Mg C ha À1) using locally derived equations and 214.6 Mg C ha À1 using generalized equations. Tree aboveground net primary productivity averaged 1041.8 g C m À2 y À1. Forty-eight tree species were identified, including many species important to the livelihoods of local communities for medicinal, ceremonial, and other provisioning services. Overall, this study shows that current conservation activities are concomitant with high tree productivity and high levels of C stocks and biodiversity, including species of local and regional significance. Sustaining forest productivity and biodiversity in the future will be critical for maintaining ecosystem services and enhancing stewardship of forest resources in the region.

PloS one, 2018

Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) influences forest demographics and carbon (C) uptake throu... more Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) influences forest demographics and carbon (C) uptake through multiple mechanisms that vary among tree species. Prior studies have estimated the effects of atmospheric N deposition on temperate forests by leveraging forest inventory measurements across regional gradients in deposition. However, in the United States (U.S.), these previous studies were limited in the number of species and the spatial scale of analysis, and did not include sulfur (S) deposition as a potential covariate. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of how tree growth and survival for 71 species vary with N and S deposition across the conterminous U.S. Our analysis of 1,423,455 trees from forest plots inventoried between 2000 and 2016 reveals that the growth and/or survival of the vast majority of species in the analysis (n = 66, or 93%) were significantly affected by atmospheric deposition. Species co-occurred across the conterminous U.S. that had decreasing and increa...

Journal of Vector Ecology, 2017

In recent decades, the Asian tiger mosquito expanded its geographic range throughout the northeas... more In recent decades, the Asian tiger mosquito expanded its geographic range throughout the northeastern United States, including Pennsylvania. The establishment of Aedes albopictus in novel areas raises significant public health concerns, since this species is a highly competent vector of several arboviruses, including chikungunya, West Nile, and dengue. In this study, we used geographic information systems (GIS) to examine a decade of colonization by Ae. albopictus throughout Pennsylvania between 2001 and 2010. We examined the spatial and temporal distribution of Ae. albopictus using spatial statistical analysis and examined the risk of dengue virus transmission using a model that captures the probability of transmission. Our findings show that since 2001, the Ae. albopictus population in Pennsylvania has increased, becoming established and expanding in range throughout much of the state. Since 2010, imported cases of dengue fever have been recorded in Pennsylvania. Imported cases of dengue, in combination with summer temperatures conducive for virus transmission, raise the risk of local disease transmission.

AoB PLANTS, 2017

Herbivores can profoundly influence plant species assembly, including plant invasion, and resulti... more Herbivores can profoundly influence plant species assembly, including plant invasion, and resulting community composition. Population increases of native herbivores, e.g. white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), combined with burgeoning plant invasions raise concerns for native plant diversity and forest regeneration. While