Forest ThreatNet

Climate Change Resource Center Goes National

EFETAC is partnering to expand the Climate Change Resource Center (CCRC) into a national, web-based resource for land managers and decision-makers. The site includes publications and summaries of existing research efforts from all Forest Service research stations and the Eastern Forest and Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Centers. Links and resources have been updated to include documents and websites relevant to eastern land managers. Please visit www.fs.fed.us/ccrc.

Researchers Lauded for Innovative Posters

Bill Hargrove and North Carolina State University and NASA Stennis Space Center collaborators received top honors for two posters at the annual Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring  Work Group meeting held earlier this year in Albuquerque, NM. The posters highlighted research focused on forest genetics and climate change as well as a national forest threat early warning system and garnered Most Exciting Science and Best Graphics awards, respectively. View the posters online at www.forestthreats.org.

EFETAC Co-Hosts Air Pollution Workshop

Steve McNulty co-hosted the 42nd Air Pollution Workshop in Asheville, NC, in April. Erika Cohen, EFETAC resource information specialist, also served on the planning committee, sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Park Service. The annual workshop provides an informal setting for presentations and discussions of current research and issues pertaining to the effects of air pollution and climate change on agricultural crops, forests, and natural ecosystems.

Scientist Co-Organizes Landscape Ecology Symposium

Bill Hargrove co-organized a special symposium included in the 2010 U.S. Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology’s (USIALE) 25th Anniversary Symposium held in Athens, Georgia in April. “Land-Surface Phenology (LSP): A View through the Lens of Vegetation,” assembled many leading experts in LSP and highlighted a rapidly developing method for revealing changes across a vegetated landscape, including new disturbances and postdisturbance recovery.

EFETAC Partners Emphasize CRAFTing Better Decisions

An article published in the Fall 2009 issue of ArcUser Magazine, titled “CRAFTing Better Decisions: Creating a link between belief networks and GIS,” highlighted EFETAC’s web-based Comparative Risk Assessment Framework and Tools (CRAFT). The article, authored by University of North Carolina Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center’s Jeff Hicks and Todd Pierce, explained how CRAFT components interface with geographic information systems and enhance decision making for forest and natural resource managers. To learn more about this process please visit www.forestthreats.org/tools/craft.

New Publications and Products

For a complete list of EFETAC publications and products, please visit www.forestthreats.org or www.treesearch.fs.fed.us.

Hargrove, W.W., J.P. Spruce, G.E. Gasser, and F.M. Hoffman. 2009. Toward a national early warning system for forest disturbances using remotely sensed canopy phenology. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 75(10):1150-1156.

Qian, H. and Q. Guo. 2010. Linking biotic homogenization to habitat type, invasiveness and growth form of naturalized alien plants in North America. Diversity and Distributions 16:119-125. 

Joyce, L.A., G.M. Blate, S.G. McNulty, C.I. Millar, S. Moser, R.P. Neilson, and D.L. Peterson. 2009. Managing for multiple resources under climate change: National forests. Environmental Management 44:1022-1032.

Noormets, A., M.J. Gavazzi, S.G. McNulty, J.-C. Domec, G. Sun, J.S. King, and J. Chen. 2010. Response of carbon fluxes to drought in a coastal plain loblolly pine forest. Global Change Biology 16:272-287.

Ambrose, M.J. and B.L. Conkling (eds.). 2009. Forest health monitoring 2006 national technical report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-117, Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 118 p.

Wickham, J.D., K.H. Riitters, T.G. Wade, and P. Vogt. 2010. A national assessment of green infrastructure and change for the conterminous United States using morphological image processing. Landscape and Urban Planning 94:186-195.