HLTH-3: July 2000 Progress Report

"How have abiotic factors including environmental stressors such as air pollution influenced the overall health of the South's forests and what are future effects likely to be?"

Jennifer Moore

July 18-19, 2000, Nashville TN

1. Evaluate the impact of acid precipitation on overall forest health, i.e., vegetation, soil chemistry, microbes, and hydrology.
   status:
   • literature search completed, literature review in progress
   • working to identify most recent regional-scale datasets for spatial analysis and display
   
   
2. Evaluate the impact of ozone pollution on forest vegetation.
   status:
   • literature search completed, literature review in progress
   • working to identify most recent regional-scale datasets for spatial analysis and display
   questions and/or issues:
   • still searching for a regional-scale database for soil CEC or pH
   
   
3. How might climate change influence forest conditions in the future?
   status:
   • in-house literature and datasets exist for this specific point
   • drought and severe weather events will be considered as a sub-point, as their primary impacts to sustainability stem from changes in frequency and intensity that result from climate change
   • links with Denny Ward/HLTH-2 have been established; insects, host species, and environmental/abiotic factors being reviewed for integration
   questions and/or issues:
   • PnET 4.0 model results may not be available for evaluation of CO2 and O3 impacts
   
   
4. Address the relationship between carbon sequestration and forest structural characteristics.
   status:
   • literature search completed, literature review in progress
   
   
5. Address other abiotic factors including fire and soil compaction, erosion & nutrient status.
   status:
   • literature search completed, literature review in progress
   • links with Bob Rummer/TIMBR-3 have been established; a conference call will take place to review shared literature before QM meeting in September
   questions and/or issues:
   • fire may be moved to a separate question

Overall Information/Dataset Details:

• spatial datasets stored as ArcView shapefiles or Arc/Info coverages, grids
• tabular datasets stored in MS Access 2000
• discussed development of on-line literature reference database
• spatial data projection still undetermined

 modified: 24-JUL-2000