Research Highlights

Understanding why farmers protect soil and water resources

Understanding why farmers adopt land management practices that protect soil, water, and other ecosystem services is a key need for developing appropriate programs and outreach strategies that promote conservation. Multiple organizations need research to support their agricultural conservation work. A team of Forest Service and university collaborators is extending research published in a 2008 Journal of Soil and Water Conservation paper that is currently the journal’s most highly cited article. Station: NRS

Putting mountain peatlands and their Carbon Stocks on the Map

It is difficult to manage a resource when you do not know with certainty where to find it. Mountain peatlands are critically important ecosystems for storing water resources and organic carbon, yet they are poorly mapped. Forest Service scientists and their partners improved methods for mountain peatland mapping, contributing toward high accuracy delineation of this important ecosystem across the globe. Station: NRS

Forest management demonstration area highlights working forest

New research published in 2017 describes the results of a 60-year forest management demonstration area on the Fernow Experimental Forest and the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. Station: NRS

Lignin coated cellulose nanocrystals Increase Shipment Temperature Strength and Allow Blown Film Production

Wood based nanomaterials enable higher use temperatures, greater strength, and faster productions cycles of renewable plastic. Station: FPL

Improved predictions of deforestation in Borneo

A collaborative team led by Forest Service research ecologist Samuel Cushman has produced a substantial breakthrough in advancing predictive modeling of drivers and patterns of deforestation. The method combines multi-scale optimization with machine-learning predictive modeling to identify the drivers of deforestation and map relative future deforestation risk. Station: RMRS

Scientists recontruct the history of snowpack in Utah to help managers plan for future water demand

Understanding snowpack variability is an important goal of water management; in particular, in the arid west where snow represents a major water storage feature. Snowpack observations in the Intermountain West are sparse and short, making them difficult for use in depicting past variability and extremes. Climate reconstruction using tree-ring data and chronologies provides water resource managers and forecasters with better spatial resolution to examine past variability in snowpack, which will be important as future hydroclimatic variability is amplified by climate change. Station: RMRS

Forest Service team proposes strategies to restore forest health with fire while protecting air quality in nearby communities

A team of Forest Service scientists delivered research that demonstrates using fire under favorable weather and fuel conditions, large areas of forest can be treated while keeping daily emissions below levels that are likely to cause harm to people in downwind communities in the Sierra Nevada of California. Station: PNW