Late-Successional and Old-Growth Forest Effectiveness Monitoring Plan for the Northwest Forest Plan (original) (raw)

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposium 2008; October 21-23, 2008; Park City, UT

2009

These proceedings report invited presentations and contributions to the 2008 Biennial Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposia, which was hosted by the Research and Development branch of the U.S. Forest Service. As the only comprehensive and continuous census of the forests in the USA, FIA provides strategic information needed to evaluate sustainability of current forest management practices across all ownerships. Symposium papers cover high priority and timely issue-based topics, including climate change, wildlife, fire, bio-energy, geo-spatial extensions, monitoring over time, integrating remote sensing and GIS applications, statistical and related quantitative solutions to emerging needs, and many others

Chapter 3: Old growth, disturbance, forest succession, and management in the area of the Northwest Forest Plan

2018

In this chapter, we examine the scientific basis of the assumptions, management strategies, and goals of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP, or Plan) relative to the ecology of old-growth forests, forest successional dynamics, and disturbance processes. Our emphasis is on “coarse-filter” approaches to conservation (i.e., those that are concerned with entire ecosystems, their species and habitats, and the processes that support them) (Hunter 1990, Noss 1990). The recently published 2012 planning rule has increased emphasis on land management rooted in ecological integrity and ecosystem processes, using coarse-filter approaches to conserve biological diversity (Schultz et al. 2013). Fine-filter approaches (e.g., species centric), which are also included in the 2012 planning rule, are discussed in other chapters. We synthesize new findings, characterize scientific disagreements, identify emerging issues (e.g., early-successional habitat and fire suppression effects) and discuss uncertaint...

Applications of the United States Forest Inventory and Analysis dataset: a review and future directions

Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2018

The United States Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has been monitoring national forest resources in the United States for over 80 years; presented here is a synthesis of research applications for FIA data. A review of over 180 publications that directly utilize FIA data is broken down into broad categories of application and further organized by methodologies and niche research areas. The FIA program provides the most comprehensive forest database currently available, with permanent plots distributed across all forested lands and ownerships in the United States and plot histories dating back to the early 1930s. While the data can be incredibly powerful, users need to understand the spatial resolution of ground-based plots and the nature of the FIA plot coordinate system must be applied correctly. As the need for accurate assessments of national forest resources continues to be a global priority, particularly related to carbon dynamics and climate impacts, such national fo...