
"Policymakers and managers often rely on maps showing where forest threats are most prevalent; they then assess these threats in relation to the forest resources most valued by the public," explains Jeff Kline, the study's lead author and a research forester at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station.
"Management priorities are then made based on this information. We have devised a way to combine and display forest threat data at its appropriate spatial scale and in a way that transcends political boundaries, using readily available GIS [geographic information system] analytical tools."
"To our knowledge, this is the first time that data describing different threats have been displayed in this manner," adds co-lead and research ecologist, Becky Kerns, "Our approach recognizes that a single point mapped as potentially highly vulnerable to a threat may not be all that important from a regional or national planning perspective. What is important is the concentration of threats within a defined and appropriate spatial scale of interest."...
The Beaver Creek fire in the Grand Tetons, 2012, National Park Service
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