Tag: Coastal Plain

The Future of the Francis Marion’s Coastal Forests

by Emrys Treasure, Eastern Forest Threat Assessment Center; Mary Morrison, Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests; and Sealy Chipley, Chipley Consulting  • 
When Hurricane Hugo hit the coast of South Carolina in September of 1989, the Francis Marion National Forest (Francis Marion) suffered a devastating blow. Sixty percent of its pine trees sustained moderate or heavy damage, and its bottomland hardwood trees fared even worse: 43 percent were broken and 43 percent were uprooted. At that time,…  More 

Pro-B: A Practical Management Tool for Implementing Selection Silviculture

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Pro-B, a method developed by U.S. Forest Service research, helps make uneven-aged management of longleaf pine and other forest types a practical and efficient option for landowners and managers. A field study by researchers showed that after less than three hours of training on the Pro-B (proportional basal area) method, managers were able to accurately…  More 

Headwaters to Estuaries: Advances in Watershed Science and Management

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
On March 2 -5, 81  scientists, managers, and stakeholders met in North Charleston, South Carolina, to present and discuss the latest research on watershed science and management. U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station scientist Carl Trettin served as conference chair and host  for the 5th Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds, which took a national perspective…  More 

Sunlight to the Seagrasses

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Just off Florida’s 8,000 miles of coastline and tidal areas, in shallow sunlit waters, over 2 million acres of seagrass meadows waft in the ocean currents. Besides providing food and habitat for manatees, sea turtles, shellfish, and other animals, seagrasses protect coasts from erosion and store vast quantities of carbon dioxide. “Seagrasses grow off the…  More 

Webinar on December 9th: Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
African American rural land ownership has declined significantly over the past 100 years, threatening critical family and community assets. The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service and Natural Resource Conservation Service, seeks to address this problem through the Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Program. A team…  More 

Coastal Plain Forests: The Next 50 Years

by Rod Truesdell, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
What will our Southern coastal forests look like in 50 years? With a myriad of factors involved—including climate change, population growth, economic outlooks, and more—it’s not a simple question. However, forest researchers have provided what they believe is a comprehensive answer to that question in the new general technical report Outlook for Coastal Plain Forests. The…  More 

Assessing Future Life Along the Lumber River

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
A new project brings together researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and North Carolina State University (NCSU) with students from the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) to assess how land use and climate change impacts on the Lumber River will affect members of the Lumbee Tribe, the largest Native American tribe in North…  More 

Forest Health Experts Eye Hurricane Damage in North Carolina’s Coastal Forests

by Stephanie Worley Firley  • 
For some residents of the North Carolina coast, the 2014 Independence Day weekend will be remembered not for fireworks and family cookouts, but for damage assessment and cleanup following the high winds and heavy rain that downed trees when Hurricane Arthur came ashore on July 3. U.S. Forest Service researchers believe that Arthur did relatively little…  More 

To Plant a Billion Pine Seeds: Reforestation in the South

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
In the early 20th century, steam-powered logging equipment came to the longleaf pine forests of the Coastal Plain, and the “golden age of lumbering” began.  When the sawdust settled, millions of acres in the region – especially along the Western Gulf Coast – were barren. “In many areas, the harvest was so complete that no…  More 

The Chipola Experimental Forest

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Located in the sandhills of the Florida Panhandle, the Chipola Experimental Forest (Chipola) was established in 1952 on privately owned land under a 99-year lease to the Southern Forest Experiment Station (now SRS), International Paper Company, and Hardaway Contracting Company. The two companies requested the cooperative arrangement with the Forest Service to enable research on…  More