Issue 8

Tools of the Agroforestry Trade

Conservation Planning Atlas

Regional reconnaissance for conservation planning is available through a large collection of existing resource maps compiled by the National Agroforestry Center (NAC) in the online Conservation Planning Atlas. The maps are designed to help the planner determine which issues and problems need to be addressed. The online Midwest version of the atlas is available at www.unl.edu/nac/atlas/index.htm.

Geographic Information System (GIS)Landscape Assessment

At the landscape (rather than regional) scale, there is a need to identify desired future conditions, to determine if buffers are appropriate, and, if so, what is needed and how practices should be designed. Here, NAC relies on GIS-guided suitability assessments. The assessments targeted to date are on agroforestry products, biodiversity, and soil protection and water quality. More information is available at www.unl.edu/nac/research/2004riparianconnectivity.pdf.

Buffer$

Money is always an issue when planning the installation of a buffer. NAC has developed Buffer$, a spreadsheetbased application, to help landowners and planners analyze the costs and benefits of establishing conservation buffers. Buffer$ can calculate potential income from a buffer from cost-share benefits, growing nontimber forest products, or other income opportunities. Managers can also compare potential income generated by a buffer with that from other crop alternatives. Buffer$ can be downloaded or a CD of the program requested at www.unl.edu/nac/buffer$.htm.

CanVis

Helping the landowner or decisionmaker understand what a new practice will look like is an important assistance resource professionals can provide. NAC, in conjunction with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and other partners, developed a visual simulation kit for natural resource professionals that provides the tools necessary to transform a digital image of the property under consideration into an image of what it might look like once the management practices are installed and adopted. The kit contains: CanVis, the image editing program; a visual simulation reference guide complete with video clips; and a self-paced training tutorial to assist in developing image editing skills. The set of three CDs is available from NAC at www.unl.edu/nac/simulation/index.htm.

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