Download or read book Multiple Scale Research Studies on Boreal Forest Fires Regimes to Inform Ontario s Policies for Emulating Natural Forest Disturbances written by Ajith H. Perera and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This prospectus presents a broad framework for a series of research studies to investigate Ontario boreal forest fire regime at multiple scales. The broad research goal is to reduce uncertainties in knowledge about boreal forest fire regimes related to policy directions in Ministry of Natural Resources' Forest management guide for natural disturbance pattern emulation. The research studies are grouped into three categories: reviews and syntheses of published literature; determining the characteristics of the broad-scale fire regime in boreal Ontario; and spatial mapping and monitoring.
Download or read book An Analysis of Literature on Natural Fire Disturbances in Relation to Ontario s Forest Management Guide for Natural Disturbance Pattern Emulation written by Lisa J. Buse and published by Sault Ste. Marie : Ontario Forest Research Institute. This book was released on 2004 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ontario's "Forest management guide for natural disturbance pattern emulation" provides direction for emulating natural fire disturbances in forest management planning. This report examines the North American scientific literature on natural fire disturbances in relation to the directions in this guide for: landscape harvest size patterns; landscape harvest patch separation; residual stands; and residual trees & downed woody debris. Gaps in the published knowledge are identified. An annotated bibliography of the literature reviewed for the report is included.
Download or read book Historical Disturbance Regimes as a Reference for Forest Policy written by Jonathan R. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the historical range of forest conditions as a reference for managing landscapes has been proposed as a "coarse-filter" approach to biodiversity conservation. By emulating historical disturbance processes, it is thought that forest management can produce forest composition and structure similar to the conditions that once supported the native biota. Although several examples of disturbance-based management exist, only recently has this concept been incorporated into policy. This thesis explored hypotheses related to disturbance-based forest policy through a literature review, policy analyses, and simulation experiments. The primary objective of chapter 2 was to examine several examples disturbance-based forest management and evaluate their potential to transition into policy within North America. The review highlighted two Canadian provinces British Columbia and Ontario--that have codified disturbance-based management but used distinct methodologies. Nearly all of the forests in these provinces are government owned, which assisted policy development. In addition, both policy-structures focused on emulating stand-replacing fires that are characteristic in boreal forests; this minimized the costs and the degree of departure from conventional forest management. In much of the U.S., land tenure is complex and disturbance regimes vary widely; this presents difficult challenges for disturbance-based policy development. In the third chapter, disturbance-based policies were developed that attempted to address these challenges. Using datasets from the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS) and the Landscape Management and Policy Simulation model (LAMPS), the economic costs and ecological benefits of several policy structures were explored. The policies included two variants of the current policy structure and three policies reflecting various aspects of the natural disturbance regime. The study area was the 3-million hectare Oregon Coast Range. Four owner groups were recognized--forest industry, nonindustrial private, state, and federal. The management intentions of each group guided the application of policies. Disturbance-based policies were primarily addressed to clearcutting on private lands because it constituted the preponderance of harvesting in the region. Information on the Coast Range's historical fire regime was used as a reference to develop disturbance-based policies. Fire severity was emulated with green-tree retention standards; fire frequency was emulated with annual harvestable area restrictions; and fire extent was emulated with harvest-unit size regulations. LAMPS projected landscape conditions, forest dynamics, management activities (clearcutting, thinning), and harvest volumes over the next century. Simulated disturbance-based policies produced age-class distributions more similar to the historical range than those created by the current policy structure. The proportions of early seral and young forest were within the historical range within 100 yrs; within this timeframe, older forests moved closer to but were still below historical conditions. In contrast, patch size distributions were less similar to historical conditions. This was because, even after a ten-fold increase in the average harvest size, the clearcut size limit remained well below the average historical fire size. Also, this was due to the scale of the analysis, which treated multiple proximate harvest-units as individual disturbance events. Therefore, regions with a high density of clearcuts, which were ubiquitous in the current policy scenarios, more closely resembled the large historical fire size. In the near term, annual revenue produced by the disturbance-based policies was estimated to be 20 to 60 percent lower than the current policy. However, relative costs were reduced significantly through time. This reflected the degree of departure between the modem and historical disturbance regimes. This simulation experiment suggested that policies attempting to reproduce historical conditions in the Coast Range would require federal forests to provide large patches of old forest that were conmon in the historical landscape. Employing public lands for this purpose would dampen costs to private landowners who would continue harvesting and provide young and early seral forest structure, which were also historically abundant. In addition, this experiment illustrated the difficultly of meeting regional-scale conservation goals across multiple private landowners and suggested that distributing costs and benefits equitably across large landscapes could be a significant challenge.
Download or read book Ontario Forest Research Institute Publications 2006 2010 written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This bibliography includes a list and descriptions of the content of publications written or co-authored by staff of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' Ontario Forest Research Institute between 2006 and 2010. During this five-year period, over 150 publications were produced by the institute's 14 research scientists, including a book, 83 journal articles, 31 reports, 10 technical notes, 5 newsletters, and 11 papers/summaries in conference/ workshop proceedings. The overall focus of the publications is forest resource management-related research and practice. Topical areas and scales of investigation are diverse and include natural disturbance regimes and landscape dynamics; carbon budgets and effects of climate change on forests; and silviculture studies on site preparation, tree improvement, vegetation management, growth and yield, disease management, and harvesting in conifer, mixedwood, and hardwood forests. Author and subject indexes are provided."--Document.
Download or read book An Assessment of Residual Patches in Boreal Fires in Relation to Ontario s Policy Directions for Emulating Natural Forest Disturbance written by Ajith Perera and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Forest Management Guide for Natural Disturbance Pattern Emulation (NDPE), which has been applied in Ontario since 2003, specifies directions and provides standards and guidance to emulate fire disturbances. Included in the NDPE guide are specific directions about the amount of residual structure to be retained during forest harvest. Improved understanding of the characteristics of post-fire residual structure in natural conditions will help forest policymakers to provide better strategic guidance for emulating natural fire disturbance patterns during forest harvesting, and forest managers to make better tactical decisions about retaining post-harvest residual structure to emulate fire disturbances. The objective of this report is to characterize the extent and variability of post-fire residual patch occurrence in natural boreal forest fire events to better understand their extent and spatial patterns and to relate these results to the directions provided in Ontario's NDPE guide.--Document.
Download or read book Fire Climate Change and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest written by Eric S. Kasischke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-08-22 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discussion of the direct and indirect mechanisms by which fire and climate interact to influence carbon cycling in North American boreal forests. The first section summarizes the information needed to understand and manage fires' effects on the ecology of boreal forests and its influence on global climate change issues. Following chapters discuss in detail the role of fire in the ecology of boreal forests, present data sets on fire and the distribution of carbon, and treat the use of satellite imagery in monitoring these regions as well as approaches to modeling the relevant processes.
Download or read book An Assessment of Tree Snag and Downed Wood Residuals in Boreal Fires in Relation to Ontario s Policy Directions for Emulating Natural Forest Disturbance written by Ajith Perera and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Due to residual tree mortality, the complement of snag and downed wood residuals increased in time. After three years, abundance of large diameter residual trees was very low, and congruent with directions provided in the NDPE guide for retaining residual trees post-harvest. Local fire intensity appeared to be the most important global determinant of occurrence of residual trees, but with an inverse relationship. Our results do not support the hypotheses that pre-burn forest cover and site conditions are reliable global predictors of residual tree occurrence."--Abstract
Download or read book Forest Research Information Paper written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Assessment of Tree Snag and Downed Wood Residuals in Boreal Fires in Relation to Ontario s Policy Directions for Emulating Natural Forest Disturbance written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objectives of this study were to characterize the abundance and variability in residual stand structure within unsuppressed boreal forest fire events to understand the extent of post-fire residual structure (residual trees, residual snags, and downed wood), its within- and among-fire variability, as well as how it changes during the first few years following the fire. Specifically, the report examines unsuppressed fires in boreal Ontario in order to describe the extent and variability of the residual structure that results from forest fires, and to document the immediate post-fire changes that occur in residual structure.
Download or read book Size Class Distribution and Spatial Proximity of Fires in a Simulated Boreal Forest Fire Regime in Relation to Ontario s Policy Directions for Emulating Natural Disturbance written by Ajith Perera and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the other three ecoregions, it underestimated fire size distribution under all simulation scenarios. The guide's direction for spatial proximity was not congruent with results from any simulated scenario in any ecoregion. However, the probability of spatial proximity was low in all but one ecoregion. In addition to the assessment of NDPE guide's direction, this study demonstrates that fire size distributions appear to be unique to ecoregions, and that these can vary further if the fire weather conditions change."--Abstract
Download or read book Fire Regimes Spatial and Temporal Variability and Their Effects on Forests written by Yves Bergeron and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Fire Regimes: Spatial and Temporal Variability and Their Effects on Forests" that was published in Forests
Download or read book Ontario Fire Regime Model written by Chao Li and published by [Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.] : Ministry of Natural Resources. This book was released on 1996 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ontario Boreal Fire Regimes in the Context of Lightning caused Ignition Point Spatial Patterns written by Muhammad Waseem Ashiq and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lightning-caused forest fires are one of the major natural disturbances in Ontario managed boreal forests. Survival of these forests with fires for centuries shows that such disturbances are integral to the boreal ecosystem and its ecological functioning. Characterizing the fire regimes defined by fire ignition frequency, fire sizes and their spatial distribution patterns etc. thus can help to improve our understanding of the boreal forest dynamics and provide guidance for management practices attempting to maintain biodiversity and achieve sustainability. In this thesis the lightning-caused fire ignitions data for four ecoregions in Ontario managed boreal forests (3E, 3W, 3S and 4S) for 1960-2009 were analyzed using pattern analysis and density estimation to determine the spatial nature of fire ignitions. These fire ignition spatial patterns were further used (as weighted ignition scenario) to simulate forest fire regimes in the study area. Fire regimes were also simulated using spatially unweighted ignitions (unweighted ignition scenario). Non-spatial (total number of fires, total burn area, number of fires by size classes, annual burn fraction) and spatial (spatial burn probability) indicators of the simulated fire regimes under both ignition scenarios were compared to test the null hypothesis that modeled forest fire regime is not affected by the spatial patterns of input fire ignitions. All data analysis were performed for individual ecoregions. Spatial pattern of ignitions were analyzed using the nearest neighbour index and Ripley's K-function. Ignition densities were estimated using the adaptive kernel density estimation method and the fire regimes were simulated using BFOLDS (Boreal Forests Landscape Dynamics Simulator). Results showed that lightning-caused fire ignitions are clustered in all ecoregions. Fire ignition density also varied spatially within ecoregions. Overall fire ignition density was highest in the northwestern ecoregion (4S) and lowest in the eastern ecoregion (3E), which corresponds to the combined gradient of effective humidity and temperature in Ontario. For each ecoregion, comparison of non-spatial simulated fire regime indicators showed statistically non-significant differences between unweighted and weighted ignitions. The spatial burn probability however captured clear spatial differences between unweighted and weighted ignitions. Spatial differences in spatial burn probability between both ignition scenarios were more prominent in ecoregions of high fire occurrence. Results of the weighted ignition scenario closely followed the spatial patterns of the estimated fire ignition density in the study area. Based on these results this thesis rejects the null hypothesis and emphasizes that ignition patterns must be considered in simulating fire regime in Ontario boreal forests.
Download or read book Forest Research Report written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Review of Published Knowledge on Post fire Residuals Relevant to Ontario s Policy Directions for Emulating Natural Disturbance written by Ajith H. Perera and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fire intensity within forest fires varies as weather and site conditions change, leaving live forest patches, and individual trees, as well as dead structure as standing trees and downed stems. Such remnant structure from pre-burn forests are collectively known as post-fire residuals. This review of the literature is focused on establishing the state of knowledge on post-fire residuals as relevant to directions in Ontario's Forest management guide for natural disturbance pattern emulation (NDPE). It covers information reported for boreal North America, captured from reports that are published and universally accessible. The report includes a description of the methodological steps followed in searching, reviewing, and synthesizing literature; definitions and descriptions of post-fire residuals; abundance and variability of specific types of post-fire residual structure; and associations of post-fire residual structure with forest cover, site conditions, and fire behaviour. It also identifies knowledge gaps and uncertainties about aspects of post-fire residual structure that are relevant to the NDPE guide directions.--Includes text from document.
Download or read book Using BFOLDS to Characterize Fire Regimes written by Wenbin Cui and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forest fires are the result of complex interactions of weather and vegetation and are highly probabilistic. Characterizing forest fire regimes, the synoptic properties of spatio-temporal variability of individual fires, is important for many forest and fire management purposes. BFOLDS 1.0 (Boreal Forest Landscape Dynamics Simulator) simulates forest fires and forest succession for large areas over long periods. Resulting fire regime simulations are emergent properties of many stochastic and spatially explicit model processes as well as user assumptions and input data. Here the authors demonstrate the use of BFOLDS in characterizing a forest fire regime, using a large boreal ecoregion as an example and readily available forest cover and spatial weather data as primary input.--Document.
Download or read book Scientific Research and the Knowledge base Concerning Forest Management Following Wildfires and Other Major Disturbances written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Resources. Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
