2014 Research Highlights
Southeastern Pine Forests Respond to Climate Change
The Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation, and Adaptation (PINEMAP) project aims to connect research, extension, and education professionals with the private landowners representing 20 million acres of planted pine forests in the Atlantic and Gulf coastal states from Virginia to Texas, plus Arkansas and Oklahoma. PINEMAP is working to improve the resilience and sustainability of these forests under variable climates, as well as increase carbon sequestration by 15 percent and the efficiency of fertilizer inputs by 10 percent by the year 2030. Eastern Threat Center scientists are leading a region-wide assessment of alternative management approaches and their impacts on forest productivity, carbon sequestration, and water yield.
Southeastern forests contain one-third of US forest carbon, and form the backbone of an industry that supplies 16 percent of global industrial wood, 5.5 percent of the jobs, and 7.5 percent of the industrial economic activity of the region. As part of PINEMAP, Eastern Threat Center scientists are working with partners from North Carolina State University to improve and apply the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) model in a multi-scale, region-wide assessment of future climate scenarios for managed forests in the southeast. This partnership also plays a critical role in PINEMAP’s regional monitoring network, which includes detailed measurements at sites in Virginia, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Florida, as well as carbon and nitrogen budgets at more than 100 other sites. These data are being integrated with thousands of legacy experiments across the region.
Eastern Threat Center researchers are also working with PINEMAP partners to build the joint capacity of university researchers and extension specialists and agents to deliver climate science information to the public using the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO). The partners include 11 land-grant universities, eight regional university-corporate-governmental research cooperatives, state and regional climate offices, the Regional Extension Forestry office, the Southeast Climate Consortium, and the Florida Climate Institute.
External Partners/Collaborators: North Carolina State University, PINEMAP
Contact: Eric J. Ward, (919) 452-6652, ejward3@ncsu.edu
