Forest ThreatNet

• The Eastern Threat Center-hosted USDA Southeast Regional Climate Hub (SERCH) recently released a SERCH LIGHTS alert tool focused on cattle heat stress based on a daily cattle heat stress product developed by the Agricultural Research Service and NOAA National Weather Service. The tool monitors the temperature and humidity index (THI) daily and warns livestock producers when conditions put their animals at risk for heat stress. The alert audience is USDA field staff, university, and extension communities with the local-scale expert knowledge to connect the information to foresters, farmers, ranchers, and other land managers across the region. Learn more and subscribe.

• First Friday All Climate Change Talks (FFACCTs) are monthly information sharing forums featuring presentations about research activities focused on climate change impacts to forest ecosystems. Visit the FFACCTs webpage for archived resources and upcoming FFACCTs presentation topics.

• The Climate Change Resource Center (CCRC) features a new series of topic pages that provide an overview of climate change considerations that may be useful for planners performing analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). "Climate Change Considerations in National Environmental Policy Act Analysis" is organized by the three main stages of the NEPA process: proposal development, environmental analysis, and implementation (including monitoring), and provides examples from completed NEPA analyses and resources.

• Forest Service Research and Development is now on Facebook! Visit and "like" the page to get the latest forest science stories and to learn more about the people behind the Forest Service's #SoundScience.

New Publications and Products (search Treesearch for all pubs and abstracts):

• Koch, F.H., J.P. Prestemon, G.H. Donovan, E.A. Hinkley, and J.M. Chase. 2016. Predicting cannabis cultivation on national forests using a rational choice framework. Ecological Economics 129:161-171. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.06.013

• Norman, S.P., F.H. Koch, and W.W. Hargrove.  2016. Review of broad-scale drought monitoring of forests: Toward an integrated data mining approach. Forest Ecology and Management. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2016.06.027

• Zheng, J., G. Sun, W. Li, X. Yu, C. Zhang, Y. Gong, and L. Tu. 2016. Impacts of land use change variations on annual inflow into the Miyun Reservoir, Beijing, China. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 20:1561-1572. doi:10.5194/hess-20-1561-2016

Personnel Updates

• Liangxia Zhang and Dencheng Zhou, visiting scientists from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, returned to China on August 14. For the past year, they have participated in several research projects under the direction of research hydrologist Ge Sun, including quantifying water supply from the El Yunque National Forest (Puerto Rico), assessing hydrological impacts of U.S. forest biomass harvesting for bioenergy development, and modeling effects of future climate change on vegetation dynamics in the Heihe River Basin in China.

• Isamar Toro recently completed an internship with the Eastern Threat Center’s Raleigh office. During her internship, which was made possible through the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities National Internship Program, she assisted with a Social Network Analysis of climate change information and natural resource managers, and contributed to content development for the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO). She also interpreted a web-based survey designed to notify Spanish-speaking agricultural communities about climate conditions that could affect livestock, and assisted with field work for carbon sequestration and streamflow studies. Toro is a recent graduate from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a minor specialization in Chemistry.