Forest ThreatNet

The Eastern Threat Center recently updated the document that, every 5 years, frames and guides our research activities. The so-called Research Work Unit Description provides a Mission Statement and defines three major 'problem areas' into which our work falls. Each of these three problem areas identifies key science needs for understanding and addressing threats to forests, and describes the ways in which the Center's research activities, tools and technology delivery, partnerships, and science communication are helping to meet those needs. While the fundamental mission of the Threat Center remains consistent over the long term, the 5-year update helps ensure our alignment with ongoing changes in forest threats, partner needs, and advances in research methods and technologies.

The mission of the Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center is to generate knowledge and tools needed to anticipate and respond to environmental threats. The most serious threats to forests involve complex factors interacting across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The Center’s challenge is to maintain a comprehensive and integrated research program to tackle these complex issues, while delivering knowledge to forest landowners, managers, decision-makers, scientists, and other interested audiences in a timely, useful, and user-friendly manner.

Problem 1. Improved monitoring methods are needed to facilitate detection of forest threats, identify meaningful change, and interpret landscape patterns and processes associated with those threats.

Problem 2. Innovative approaches to assessment and prediction are needed to improve understanding of the realities and implications of ecosystem change.

Problem 3. Active information exchange is essential to ensuring that science is used in management, and equally important in fostering relevant and useful science.

Read the Eastern Threat Center's Work Unit Description.