With increasing recognition that management on a single ownership can affect adjacent landowners, management agencies are increasingly interested in landscape studies spanning multiple ecological and political boundaries. Yet to date, the data available from landowners is often inconsistent and the ability to assess broad landscapes in a timely fashion difficult. Working with federal, state, university, and non-governmental partners, the Integrated Landscape Assessment Project has built consistent vegetation maps and state-and-transition models across all lands in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and New Mexico. The state-and-transition models integrate vegetation growth, management, and natural disturbances in a single modeling environment. We used the available data and models to examine how different management scenarios interact with natural disturbances to affect future vegetation, timber volume, fuel potential, and wildlife habitat in eastern Oregon and Washington.
Results/Conclusions
Under our restoration scenario, dry forests become more resilient, generate timber and biomass, reduce crown fire potential, and both increase wild habitat for some species and decrease habitat for other species. Under less active management, dry forests become less resilient to natural disturbances with different wildlife habitats benefitting. Our results illustrate that different land managers can work together to achieve resilient dry forests in different geographic locations. The results also illustrate potential conflicts in economic and ecological goals depending on societal values. From a science perspective, the data and models illustrate gaps in ecological knowledge, allow for scenario analysis, and provide working hypotheses for assumptions on tree growth, wildlife habitat, and fuel, among other variables. Concurrently, the models and data can help inform management and policy decisions and provide a common set of data for multiple organizations to use.