Browse wiki

From COST Action FP0804: FORSYS
Jump to: navigation, search
United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest
Has DSS development United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest.Description of DSS development +
Has DSS development stage
Has country United States +
Has decision making dimension More than one decision maker/stakeholder +
Has decision stage design  + , choice  +
Has decision support techniques United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest.Decision support techniques +
Has description Among the 16 national forests of the NorthAmong the 16 national forests of the Northwest region, the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (OWNF) is a large and diverse area, encompassing over 4-million acres (16187 Km2) in Washington state, which extends from North to South along 180 miles (290 Km) from the Canadian border to the Goat Rocks Wilderness, in the Northwest region of USA. For at least 20 years, scientists and managers associated with the OWNF have understood that the forest has become more susceptible to uncharacteristic severe fires and to epidemic levels of insects and disease than the historical norm. Moreover, the characteristic habitats of the late-successional forests are declining (large and old trees, that are the basis of many wildlife habitats, are few in number). In addition infrastructure, as the forest’s road network, affects the conditions of aquatic ecosystems and are expensive to maintain (USDA FS, 2010). The need for a restoration strategy is reinforced by expected climate change, another stressor on the sustainability and resiliency of the forest. An initial dry forest restoration strategy was developed in 2000. It included practices such as thinning uncharacteristically dense stands of trees, and using controlled burning to remove small trees and shrubs that contribute to large and severe fires. In 2009, a new phase of the restoration strategy began thanks to the knowledge gained from the experience gathered during more than one decade and thanks to the new science findings relative to the landscape evaluation and road network evaluation. A team of 11 resource specialists (interdisciplinary team, ID team) undertook the revision of the strategy. One of the team members, a scientist at the USDA Forest Service Wenatchee Forestry Sciences Laboratory, championed use of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support tool (EMDS) for analysis and planning related to the new forest restoration strategy. The restoration strategy consists of two main stages, 1) the landscape evaluation (What is the state of the system?) and 2) the planning phase (What are reasonable responses to address the problems revealed from the evaluation stage?). EMDS was explicitly designed to support these two stages of planning, which allowed results from the assessment to be easily passed to the planning stage. While the restoration strategy considers the whole forest, restoration activities are planned and executed at the scale of subunits called “districts.” Each district is still quite large, so potential restoration activities need to be strategically located. EMDS was used to do landscape evaluations at the scale of 30-50,000 ha and then to locate high priority potential landscape treatment areas (PLTAs) within these landscapes. In this way, each assessment was able to support multiple projects and provide justification for the choice of treatment areas (USDA FS, 2010). The EMDS leads began with a pilot project to develop the restoration plan of a dry forest landscape on the Naches Ranger District. They are now building on this experience to bring the process to other districts. One of the most difficult problems related to implementation of the restoration strategy is the integration of the diverse data. The interpretation of the interactions among vegetation, wildlife habitats, aquatics, and disturbances (fire and road network) can be done by using specific tools at landscape scale but the description, analysis and quantification of the interactions among the single species and the changes within the forest communities or disturbances phenomena is much more limited (USDA FS, 2010). Moreover, the determination of the strategic placement of treatments have to take in consideration the risk to human communities and the sustainability of habitat for federal listed species. EMDS was used to integrate the results from vegetation pattern analysis, the fire movement modeling, wildlife habitats, aquatic-road interactions and the road network evaluation.eractions and the road network evaluation.  +
Has end date January 2012  +
Has full name The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest  +
Has goods and services dimension Market wood products +
Has knowledge management processes United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest.Knowledge management process +
Has location Pacific Northwest region  +
Has objectives dimension Multiple objectives +
Has reference USDA FS, 2010. The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Restoration Strategy: adaptative ecosystem management to restore landscape resiliency. 2010 Final Version.  +
Has related DSS EMDS +
Has responsible organisation US Department of Agriculture - Forest Service +
Has spatial context Spatial with neighbourhood interrelations +
Has spatial scale Regional/national level +
Has start date April 2011  +
Has support for social participation United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest.Support of social participation +
Has temporal scale Medium term (tactical) +
Has type of owner organization national administration  +
Has website http://www.institute.redlands.edu/emds/  +
Has wiki contact e-mail chiara.torresan@entecra.it  +
Has wiki contact person Chiara Torresan  +
Has working group theme Knowledge management  +
Has queryThis property is a special property in this wiki. United States-The restoration strategy of the dry and mesic landscape in the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest +
Categories Case  +
Modification dateThis property is a special property in this wiki. 25 April 2013 15:01:59  +
hide properties that link here 
Analysis at the landscape level allowed the integration of concerns about multiple resources as well + , Decision criteria beyond the state of the ecosystem (for example, social values fire risk, economic + , Forest managers have to analyze how their forest management interventions effect the landscape + , The DSS gave the forest manager the opportunity to experiment how their emphasis towards certain + , The DSS usage enabled the planning team to measure the achievement of the restoration goals + , The use of EMDS allowed the planning team to identify priority area for restoration treatments that + , The use of the DSS improved communication among the planning team by providing a framework of the + Has related case
 

 

Enter the name of the page to start browsing from.