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Landscape Dynamics and Forest Management:
A Rich-Media CD-ROM Presentation
General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-101CD
Climatically
driven disturbances such as wildfires, rainstorms, floods, and landslides
regularly move across landscapes and are often perceived as disasters.
Yet these disturbances are an intrinsic part of landscapes and they
are responsible for the diverse habitats that create healthy riverine
ecosystems.
Most aquatic and riparian habitats form
within deposits of sediment and organic material derived from erosion
and most erosion occurs during periodic disturbances. How do natural
resource managers, regulators, scientists, environmentalists, and
the public put disturbances, either natural or human related, into
context?
This
instructional CD is intended to help managers better understand
the dynamic nature of landscapes. When landscapes and riverine attributes
are perceived as dynamic over decades to centuries, better informed
management choices about analysis, monitoring, and management actions
may result.
In the CD-ROM, Landscape Dynamics
and Forest Management, Lee Benda and Dan Miller of
the Earth Systems Institute in Seattle, Washington, explore perspectives
of watersheds and landscapes with periodic disturbance as a central
paradigm. Using videography, aerial photography, computer simulation,
visualization techniques, and a Landscape Simulator, they examine
landscape behavior over decades to centuries to show how stream
channels and landscapes change in response to disturbance.
The Landscape Simulator is software
that creates a four-dimensional virtual landscape from digital maps
and databases. The simulator is a tool for modeling the role of
disturbance in creating and maintaining landscape structure using
probabilistic disturbance scenarios.
Landscape Dynamics and Forest Management examines the dynamics of how fire affects the landscape
for up to 300 years into the future and how sediment and large wood
might be routed through the landscape. The Simulator explores and
displays example management scenarios to help managers appreciate
the consequences of different management scenarios over long time
frames. The CD uses animations to visually illustrate landscape
and sediment routing dynamics over decades and centuries. Relevant
literature that elaborates on the concepts is included, along with
a bibliography and GIS software tools that support these kinds of
analyses.
Presentation of these ideas in a rich-media
format was the brainchild of Mike Furniss, PNW Research Station,
Aquatic and Land Interactions Program. Mike coordinated the project
which is the result of collaboration and support involving many
partners including the Earth Systems Institute, Humboldt State University
Coursework Development Center, USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest
Research and Rocky Mountain Research Stations, Stream Systems Technology
Center, Willamette National Forest and Pacific Northwest Region,
Bureau of Land Management, and California Department of Forestry.
Copies of the CD, General Technical
Report RMRS-GTR-101CD, are available from the Rocky Mountain Research
Station by going to Web site http://www.fs.fed.us/rm
and clicking on “Publications: Orders/Questions.”
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