Forest ThreatNet
Eastern Threat Center Highlights
From Fan to Fellow: Research Hydrologist Honored by Organization that Inspired his Career
Long before Ge Sun (left) became an associate editor of forest hydrology for the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), he was a big fan. “The publications by AWRA with a strong focus on the comprehensive nature of waters inspired my early interest in forest hydrology and watershed management even before I moved to the United States in the early 1990s,” says Sun, a native of China and a research hydrologist with the Eastern Threat Center. Throughout his productive research career, Sun has remained devoted to the journal and AWRA’s mission. He recently learned that AWRA’s Board of Directors and members selected him to be a Fellow Member, an honor that recognizes outstanding service to AWRA and the water resources profession. Joining a distinguished group of Fellows designated annually since 1974, Sun will receive the Fellow Member award on November 15 at the AWRA President’s Reception during the 50th Annual Water Resources Conference in Denver, Colorado. Read more in CompassLive...
Computational Landscape Ecologists Look Ahead During Symposium
Technological advances and changing ecosystems have led to increased emphasis on and opportunities in the field of computational landscape ecology—the development of models and tools that can quantify ecosystem impacts from land use, land cover, and climatic changes. To outline a 10-year research agenda and guide young researchers in the field, Eastern Threat Center research ecologist Kurt Riitters co-organized a symposium, “Research Priorities in Computational Landscape Ecology,” for the 9th World Congress of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) held in Portland, Oregon. Approximately 75 scientists and students attended the 10 symposium presentations, which were followed by a discussion session. An effort is underway to prepare a symposium summary for publication. Among the symposium speakers were Center research ecologist Bill Hargrove and ForWarn collaborator Forrest Hoffman from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Save the date! The Eastern Threat Center will host the next meeting of the US-IALE in Asheville, NC, April 2-8, 2016.
U.S. Forest Service attendees at the IALE World Congress. Photo by USDA Forest Service.
EPA Report Highlights Forest Loss and Fragmentation
Between 2001 and 2011, the contiguous United States lost three percent of its forested land cover area, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) latest Report on the Environment (ROE). Along with this forest loss came more fragmentation when core forest--critical for sustaining biological communities and ecosystem services that require large, intact areas--decreased by 12.8 percent over the time period. These findings come from Eastern Threat Center research ecologist Kurt Riitters' collaborative studies and analyses of the National Land Cover Database, which is updated every five years. Forest fragmentation is one of 85 indicators of environmental and human health changes described in the EPA ROE. Learn more about recent forest fragmentation across the nation and within each EPA region.
Road building and other human activities fragment forests. Photo by Larry Korhnak, InterfaceSouth.
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