Forest Service team honored for climate change tool

A team of researchers from the USDA Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center (EFETAC) and natural resource managers and planners from the Southern Region received the 2010 Regional Forester Honor Award for Technology Transfer (Southern Region).

Jerome Thomas, Deputy Regional Forester for Natural Resources, presented the TACCIMO development team with the award. Recipients were Steve McNulty, EFETAC ecologist; Emrys Treasure, EFETAC biological scientist; Jennifer Moore Myers, EFETAC resource information specialist; Rob Herring, EFETAC applications programmer; Chris Liggett, Southern Region planning director; David Meriwether, Southern Region ecosystem management coordinator; and Paul Arndt, Southern Region regional planner.

Above: The Forest Service Team receiving the Regional Forester Honor Award for Technology Transfer were (left to right) Steve McNulty, EFETAC ecologist; Emrys Treasure, EFETAC biological scientist; David Meriwether, Southern Region ecosystem management coordinator; Paul Arndt, Southern Region regional planner; Chris Liggett, Southern Region planning director; and Jerome Thomas, Southern Region deputy regional forester for natural resources. Click image to enlarge.

The award recognized the team’s development of the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO)—a Web-based assessment and reporting system that integrates the most current climate change science with forest planning. The team was selected for both TACCIMO development and for their numerous outreach activities, consisting of online and face-to-face demonstrations and training sessions to instruct new and potential users of TACCIMO’s suite of reporting and mapping tools.

User feedback collected during the sessions helped guide further development of the TACCIMO prototype, available at http://www.forestthreats.org/taccimo. An expanded version, that incorporates climate change science and forest planning information for the eastern United States and an enhanced graphic interface that links text with data maps, charts, and climate model projections, is scheduled to launch in early 2011.

Danny C. Lee, EFETAC Director, says “TACCIMO is an excellent example of how collaboration between management and research can accelerate and enhance technology development and sharing. Our goal is to ensure that natural resource managers, planners, and private landowners can access the tools and information they need to make informed decisions. The TACCIMO effort addresses challenges of a changing environment and increased demand for forests products and services.”

For more information
Contact Steve McNulty at steve.mcnulty@usda.gov or Emrys Treasure at emrys.treasure@usda.gov.