All Articles Page 4

Call for Abstracts: the 2019 FIA Stakeholders Science Meeting

by Teresa Jackson, SRS Public Affairs  • 
The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA) and NCASI are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2019 FIA Stakeholders Science Meeting to be held November 19-21, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The meeting will bring together international forest scientists, managers, and stakeholders to share insights on contemporary issues, science…  More 

How Drought and Thinning Affect Water Balances in Southeastern Pine Plantations

by Megan Bequette, SRS Science Communication Intern  • 
Evapotranspiration – the combination of water evaporation and plant transpiration – is an essential process for forests and water supply and climate. This is particularly true in the Southeastern U.S. where evapotranspiration from forested watersheds can return 50 to 90 percent of annual precipitation to the atmosphere. Until now, there has been a gap in…  More 

Projecting Climate Change Effects on Outdoor Recreation

by Megan Bequette, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
Cool temperatures enjoyed by hikers might rise enough that people decide to stay inside instead. The culprit – climate change – will cause higher temperatures and uneven intensification of both drought and rainfall. As a result, outdoor recreation trends could change markedly. A study by University of Georgia postdoctoral research associate Ashley Askew and USDA…  More 

Bachman’s Warbler

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
From 1975 to 1979, Paul Hamel and colleagues spent 7,000 hours walking through the Francis Marion National Forest and adjacent lands in South Carolina, playing the song of the Bachman’s Warbler and listening for the response that never came. “Eventually, my adviser said ‘this is a biology department, not a history department!’ So I expanded…  More 

Regional Participants Gather at the Fourth Experimental Forest Workshop

by Megan Bequette and Naomi Cohen-Shields, SRS Science Communications Interns  • 
About 30 USDA Forest Service scientists gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina this month for the fourth workshop in a series about reinvigorating the SRS network of Experimental Forest and Range sites. The group included 17 SRS scientists, in addition to FIA, EFR sabbatical recipients, university collaborators, and two partners from the Southern Region of the…  More 

Research for Mississippi and Beyond

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Water defines the Mississippi Delta, an alluvial plain in northwest Mississippi. The Delta is sandwiched between the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, and a network of levees and pumps aim to keep the land dry enough for habitation and agriculture. In 2019, however, historic flooding left fields inundated for months. USDA Forest Service scientists have served…  More 

Promoting Forest Health in Kentucky

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Most bourbon whiskey is made in Kentucky, and federal law requires all bourbon to be aged in white oak barrels. USDA Forest Service researchers and partners are teaming up to advance the sustainability and restoration of white oak resources across the South. This research, along with forest health research on the American chestnut and other…  More 

Longleaf Pine on the Santee Experimental Forest

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
In 1989, South Carolina’s Francis Marion National Forest lost close to a third of its pine and hardwood trees to Hurricane Hugo. USDA Forest Service land managers have spent the last thirty years recovering from that disturbance and working to meet the state’s growing needs for clean water, forest products, recreation areas, and wildlife habitat.…  More 

The State of U.S. Forests

by Sonja Oswalt, SRS FIA Forester  • 
The U.S. forest products industry accounts for approximately four percent of the nation’s total manufacturing GDP, producing over $200 billion in products every year. To keep tabs on the condition and status of America’s forest resources over time, the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program compiles the official estimates for all public and private forest lands in…  More 

Predicting Fire Behavior with New 3D Fuel Models

by Diane Banegas, USDA Forest Service, Knowledge Management and Communications  • 
Land managers have a new tool in their firefighting arsenals that models forest fuels in three dimensions. These 3D fuel models developed by the USDA Forest Service have the potential to make firefighting and the management of controlled burns safer and less costly while helping to protect valuable natural resources. The 3D fuels modeling technique…  More