Issue 7

The Southern Center for Wildland-Urban Interface Research and Information

The SRS Southern Center for Wildland-Urban Interface Research and Information (WUI Center) was opened in Gainesville, FL, in January 2002. Activities of the WUI Center represent an immediate Forest Service response to critical findings of the Southern Wildland-Urban Interface Assessment and the Southern Forest Resource Assessment, which both identified urbanization as the biggest threat to southern forests.

Though initially focused on research and technology transfer needed to address fire in the wildlandurban interface (WUI) in the South, the WUI Center has expanded its focus to include a range of issues related to the urbanization of southern forests, such as how ecosystems and disturbance regimes are altered by human influences; subsequent risks to human and natural communities; and the relationship of land use policies to ecological processes and disturbances in the interface.

The mission of the center is to develop and communicate guidelines, models, and tools needed by natural resource managers, policymakers, planners, and citizens to reduce risks to ecosystems and human communities in urban and urbanizing landscapes. The center’s technology transfer program focuses on disseminating new and existing information, serving as a clearinghouse of WUI information, building partnerships and collaborative efforts and approaches, and facilitating and creating linkages.

The Southern Wildland-Urban Interface Council (SWUIC), a chartered council of the Southern Group of State Foresters, is the advisory council for the WUI Center. SWUIC helps guide the technology transfer activities of the WUI Center and assists in identifying research needs. This guidance helps ensure that the research and technology transfer products of the WUI Center meet the needs of their stakeholders.

The WUI Center’s Web site, InterfaceSouth (www.interfacesouth.usda.gov or www.interfacesouth.org), has publications, training and outreach programs, decision support systems, a literature database, a photo gallery, current WUI news and events, and much more. You can also sign up for the Southern Wildland Urban Interface Network listserv from the Web site and receive the InterfaceSouth Update, an electronic, monthly bulletin about critical WUI issues, and the InterfaceSouth Post, which contains current interface information, such as upcoming conferences or news articles, sent out on a weekly basis.

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For more information:

Annie Hermansen-Báez at 352–376–3271 or ahermansen@fs.fed.us