US Forest Service Research and Development Forest and Rangeland Condition - Rocky Mountain Research Station - RMRS - US Forest Service
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  • 240 West Prospect
  • Fort Collins, CO 80526
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Forest and Rangeland Condition

Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in developing indicators of ecosystem condition. The focus on condition indicators is a direct result of a shift in natural resource management that is now focusing on long-term sustainability of ecosystems as the measure of responsible stewardship rather than sustained yield. This shift is attributable to a growing recongnition that the human economy is very much dependent upon goods and services derived directly from ecosystems and that intensive use of natural resources may be stressing ecosystems to a point where their ability to provide these benefits is compromised. Numerous international and national organizations have embraced the idea of sustainability indicators and they are using them to improve the public dialog and resource decisionmaking concerning the state of our nation's natural resources. Scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station have been long involved in developing the analytical capability to quantify indicators of natural resource condition in support of the Agency's national resource assessment effort as required by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA).

The purpose of this study was to identify broad-scale (nationwide) relationships between enironmental characteristics (like climate, primary productivity, land cover, land use, land ownership, human populations) and indicators of ecosystem condition (like fragmentation of grassland and forest habitats, exotic birds, forest growth and mortality, streamflows, water nutrient levels, pH, and toxic chemical releases). Our objective was to detect and quantify coarse effects at broad spatial scales -- we were, quite literally, trying to see the forest, not the trees. Our analysis focused on identify those conditions that indicated the highest level of ecosystem stress. We refer to those conditions as "hotspots."

Models estimated for each condition indictor performed well at predicting ecosystem condition hotspots (< 10% error rate). With those models we were able to evaluate projections of the environmental characteristics to look at how ecosystem condition would change in the future (2025). This study represents an attempt to consider many indicators simultaneously for the purpose of identifying those areas of the country where ecosystem condition appears problematic. We delineated those problem areas based on the coincident occurrence of hotspots (see image). One implication of this work is that the projected hotspot areas of poor ecosystem condition do not coincide extensively with National Forests and Grasslands. Consequently, addressing the areas of ecosystem stress identified in this study will most likely require cooperation with state and private land owners. Results from this, and other, broad-scale studies from this research unit are being used by the Forest Service to inform its national strategic planning process and its examination of sustainable resource development.

More information on this and related studies can be found in: "Nonparametric Projections of Forest and Rangeland Condition Indicators." General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-166. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 39 p.; and "Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Condition Indictors: Identifying National Areas of Opportunities Using Data Evelopment Analysis." Forest Science 50:473-494.

Rocky Mountain Research Station
Last Modified: Monday, 28 April 2008 at 17:16:33 EDT (Version 1.0.5)