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Knowledge Gaps and Scientific Uncertainties

As with any endeavor of this scope, an assessment of knowledge identifies the extent of our ignorance. Available information has allowed us to identify several emerging issues about the sustainability of southern forests, but additional information is needed to refine understanding and more clearly identify problems and solutions. Each chapter in the Technical Report identifies key uncertainties in specific topic areas. The following are some key issues that cut across the various topic areas.

Expanding populations and impacts on ecosystems—More heavily populated rural and urban landscapes will impact wildlife, water, and other benefits derived from forested ecosystems in the South. Additional information is needed to reduce uncertainties regarding: (1) forecasts of how and where these changes might occur, (2) how human population density influences forest ecosystems and options for their management, and (3) how development can be designed to promote forest sustainability.

Markets, management, and values—Because private landowners control most southern forests, forest conditions are determined by private management choices. These choices are heavily influenced by markets for forest goods and services and by other values derived from forests. A full accounting and understanding of how values are formed and how decisions are made is crucial for clarifying how forest uses and the flow of benefits will change in the future. Additional work in this area is needed to refine methods for forecasting change in forest area and broad forest types.

Forest productivity—The productivity of forest ecosystems is a key factor in determining land allocation, forest use, and ultimately forest conditions across the South. Productivity extends beyond timber production to include the provision of wildlife, clean water, and other benefits of forests, and is influenced to uncertain degrees by several forces of change.

Forecasting ecological changes—This Assessment has highlighted the multiple forces of change at work in the South’s forests. Yet tools are not available for: (1) forecasting the implications of these multiple, interacting changes on the area, structure, and function of southern forest ecosystems, and (2) fully understanding the impacts on values that are derived from these systems. Such tools would help identify emerging scarcities within the region.

Analysis at landscape and regional scales—Science and management conducted at these broad scales are relatively new endeavors. Most forest research has been conducted at very fine scales, often without the information needed to develop implications at broader scales. When the scale at which the science is conducted does not match the questions that are being asked, answers are often incomplete.

Fire ecology and management—Elimination of natural fire cycles is one of the most substantial alterations imposed by humans on the forested ecosystems of the South. Uncertainties exist regarding: (1) the role of fire in specific ecotypes, and (2) strategies for effectively and safely reintroducing fire into forest ecosystems.

Pine plantations and ecosystem functions—Some portions of the South will see increased concentrations of pine plantations. Landscape-level ecological implications of increased pine plantations are uncertain. Additional information on the wildlife implications of expanding pine plantations is needed, especially in the Coastal Plain of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi.

Forest management approaches—This Assessment has described an increasingly complex environment for conducting forest management and suggests a need for a broader array of management strategies. New management approaches are especially needed for managing forests in wildland-urban interface areas.