2017 Accomplishment Highlights
Center Accomplishments At-a-Glance
Refereed publications -- 65
Presentations, tours, and workshops -- 145
Research, Science Delivery, and Partnership Highlights
Burning Forests Can Impact Water Supplies
Forest Service Software Goes Global (Pictured: GuidosToolbox, a research collaboration that has become the vehicle to transfer Forest Service technology to an underserved global community of forest resource analysts)
International Collaborators Develop Easy-to-Use Formulas for Water and Carbon Accounting Conditions
LanDAT Reveals Patterns of Landscape Change and Resilience across the United States
Open Source Software Library Helps Users Quantify Seasonal Patterns in Noisy Environmental Data
Southern Appalachian Drought and Fires Expose Future Risks
Study Reveals the Role of Forests in Providing Drinking Water to the Population of Puerto Rico
International Activities
- Research ecologist Frank Koch was elected to a two-year term as an Executive Committee officer in the International Pest Risk Research Group.
- In collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre, research ecologist Kurt Riitters harmonized forest fragmentation assessments between the United States and Europe through stand-alone GUIDOS Toolbox software that allows users to perform the same type of analysis used for Forest Service Resources Planning Act assessments.
At the invitation of Dr. Hyung Tae Choi and supported by the Korea National Institute of Forest Science, research hydrologist Ge Sun gave a seminar on forest hydrology and toured several long-term field hydrological research installations that focus on forest ecological restoration to sustain water supply. (Pictured: From left to right, Drs. Hyung Tae Choi, Ge Sun, and Soo-Youn Nam visited the Gwangneung forest hydrology station established in the 1980s and focused on monitoring forest water supply functions. Photo by Hong Geun Lim.)
- At the invitation of Professor Jiangui Li at Xinjian Agricultural University, research hydrologist Ge Sun gave a seminar and conducted a study tour, resulting in a research collaboration and application of Forest Service ecohydrological models to estimate forest water requirements and optimize water uses among economic sectors.
- At the invitation of Beijing Forestry University, research hydrologist Ge Sun led a U.S. delegate and visited a long-term National Ecological Research Station in Jixin County, China.
- Research hydrologist Ge Sun co-organized the annual US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC) meeting attended by more than 150 scientists from China, Japan, and the United States.
- Research hydrologist Ge Sun chaired two symposiums at the 2017 Beijing International Congress of Ecology and later met officers at the China Society of Forestry to discuss comparison studies on oak forest management.
- Research hydrologist Ge Sun gave an interview for the Deutschlandfunk afternoon radio program Forschung Aktuell, which was broadcast in German to an international audience as part of a news story called “Leiden des Wassers” (“The Suffering of the Water”).
- Center Director Danny Lee, research ecologists William Hargrove and Steve Norman, and biological scientist William Christie presented a ForWarn overview and provided consultation for visiting hydrologists from the National Institute of Forest Science located in Seoul, South Korea.
- Biological scientist Johnny Boggs added six years of 10-minute sap flow and 1-hour meteorological data (over 8 million data points) from North Carolina paired watershed studies to the global SAPFLUXNET global database to further understanding of ecological controls on plant-level transpiration rates.
- Research ecologist Qinfeng Guo published “A Database of Elevational Distribution of Nonnative Plants across 11 Mountains in China,” now publicly available at the Purdue University Research Repository.
- Numerous scientists contributed presentations as part of international meetings, conferences, seminars, workshops, webinars, and guest lectures at: Beijing Forestry University; Canadian Forest Service Great Lakes Forestry Centre; China-U.S. Biodiversity Workshop; FLUXCOM Workshop; ForestSat; Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l’environnement et l’agriculture; International Conference on Ecology and Management of Alien Plant Invasions; International Congress of Ecology; International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Cluster Computing; International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) Division V Conference; IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress; IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania; Japanese Geoscience Union-American Geophysical Union Joint Meeting; Korea National Institute of Forest Science; Meeting of the International Pest Risk Research Group; North American Forest Ecology Workshop; Society of Economic Botany Annual Meeting; US-International Association of Landscape Ecology Annual Meeting; Workshop on Oak Forests at Chinese Society of Forestry; and Xinjiang Agricultural University.
Awards and Honors
U.S.-International Association for Landscape Ecology Distinguished Landscape Ecologist – William Hargrove, research ecologist (Pictured: Hargrove accepts the award from US-IALE President Ross Meentemeyer. Photo by Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, University of Georgia.)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture Certificate of Appreciation for contributions to Effects of Drought on Forests and Rangelands in the United States: A Comprehensive Science Synthesis – Steve Norman, Frank Koch, and William Hargrove, research ecologists
- N.C. Source Water Collaborative’s Source Water Protection Award (Education category) for “Defining and Understanding How Forests Protect Watersheds and Source Water” – Ge Sun, research hydrologist, Steve McNulty, research ecologist, and Southern Research Station collaborators
