Tag: Tools

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 

Urban Forestry South Tests New Urban Forest Sustainability and Management Audit System

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
An audit system developed by the U.S. Forest Service can help urban forest programs benchmark their resources and program capacity, and provide direction for urban forest management programs and plans. Urban Forestry South, a science delivery center of the Forest Service Southern Research Station Integrating Human and Natural Systems unit, recently beta tested their new…  More 

ForWarn Chosen for National Climate Resilience Toolkit Launched for White House

by Sarah Workman, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center  • 
ForWarn, the satellite-based forest disturbance monitoring system developed by the U.S. Forest Service’s Eastern Forest and Western Wildland Threat Assessment Centers was selected as one of the “top 25” tools included in the  U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit  launched on November 17th for the White House by an interagency team that included members from the Forest…  More 

Taking the Long View at the Francis Marion National Forest

by Adapted from materials provided by Lori Barrow, South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative  • 
The Francis Marion National Forest (Francis Marion) is currently revising its land and resource management plan under the National Forest System 2012 Planning Rule. The new rule requires climate change be taken into account and supports an adaptive framework based on science, public values, and the all-lands context for resource management. Located adjacent to the…  More 

Planning for Future Forests with Help from the TACCIMO Tool

by Lisa Jennings, North Carolina State University, and Stephanie Worley Firley, EFETAC  • 
From the North Carolina mountains to South Carolina’s coastal plain to the tropics of Puerto Rico, climate change is on the minds of forest planners. National forest planning teams in these areas are among the first few to revise their land and resource management plans under the U.S. Forest Service’s new Planning Rule released in…  More 

NSF Grant Funds New Understanding of Plant Invasions at Larger Scales

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Purdue University and U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) researchers recently received over $700,000 from the National Science Foundation to explore regional and continental patterns of non-native plant invasions. Chris Oswalt, research forester with the SRS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) unit, and Qinfeng Guo, ecologist with the Eastern Forest Threat Assessment Center, serve…  More 

ForWarn Follows Rapidly Changing Forest Conditions

by Perdita Spriggs, EFETAC  • 
U.S. Forest Service and partner scientists are keeping a watchful eye on forest health. As fall colors replace the lush greenness of spring and summer, researchers recognize telltale signs of change in healthy forests. A new publication highlights specific examples where researchers have used ForWarn, a state-of-the-art forest change recognition and tracking system, to detect…  More 

Eastern Threat Center Co-Organizes Special Landscape Ecology Event

by Stephanie Worley Firley, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center  • 
The term “landscape ecology” may have different meanings for different people. That’s because the science of landscape ecology encompasses many subjects, perspectives, interactions, and scales. “It is about people, ecosystems, species, energy, pollutants, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, modeling, disturbance, flows, conservation, and many, many other things,” according to the US-Regional Association of…  More 

ForWarn Team Wins 2013 Interagency Partnership Award

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
  The U.S. Forest Service Eastern Forest and Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Centers‘ ForWarn team is among the agency recipients of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer’s (FLC) 2013 Interagency Partnership Award. The award recognizes the collaborative efforts of federal laboratory employees for outstanding work in technology transfer, and is one of the…  More 

Mapping Species Invasions

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Forest Service scientists help organize international meeting. Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center research ecologist Frank Koch and Northern Research Station research biologist Robert Venette, and international colleagues co-organized the sixth annual International Pest Risk Mapping Workgroup (IPRMW) held July 23-26 in Norway. The IPRMW is a group of like-minded scientists focused on improving the…  More