US Forest Service

Insights from coproduced scenarios toward urban sustainability transformations

Urban sustainability transformations call for fundamental shifts in how cities are organized, developed, and governed. Yet we need a better understanding of the diversity of visions and pathways that can enable transformative change. We address this gap through an analysis of 60...

Quantifying the contribution of vegetation layer uncertainty to simulated forest fuels treatment placement

Background Western US forests face rising high-severity fire risk motivating increased investment in forest management. The high cost of treatments and vast areas needing work require efficient resource allocation. Forest landscape models can help scale up analysis and support ma...

Local recreationist survey for understanding the drivers and effects of recreation displacement in southern California national forests

This is the survey instrument administered to residents of Southern California who had visited one or more of the four national forests in the region since summer 2020. It was administered in fall 2023 in both English and Spanish via Qualtrics.

Longleaf Pine Drought Resilience is More Sensitive Than Resistance to Competition Reduction but Influenced by Site Conditions

Competition reduction is widely considered an effective strategy for mitigating drought impacts. Yet little is known about the efficacy of this strategy on drought-tolerant species, particularly across contrasting silvicultural treatments. We reconstructed annual growth of longle...

Human Recreation and Fire History Shape Landscape Connectivity for an Endangered Forest Carnivore

ABSTRACT Habitat connectivity is critical for long‐term wildlife population persistence, yet the permeability of landscape features can vary with human activity and disturbance history. Characterizing landscape features influencing permeability is critical for landscape planning...

Right on time: evaluating accuracy and timing of burn-severity assessments to support post-fire management

Abstract Effective wildfire impact assessment and post-fire management rely on burn-severity maps that accurately characterize fire effects on vegetation and soils. These maps inform time-sensitive activities such as post-fire flood and debris-flow modeling, risk mitigation for h...

Shallow Landslides Align With Atmospheric Rivers in Coastal Steeplands

Abstract Rapid, shallow landslides in coastal mountains are triggered by extreme precipitation, shaping topography and impacting human settlements. Using an inventory of >700 landslides mapped from satellite imagery (2009–2024) and an atmospheric river database (1981–2019), this...

Automated workflow demonstrates mixed treatment impacts on burn severity across ecoregion scales

Background Intensifying wildfire activity in western North America has motivated focus on fuel treatments as a tool for moderating fire severity. Treatment effectiveness is influenced by complex interactions among biophysical settings, treatments and weather. Aims This study intr...

Range-Wide Geographic Variation of Major Gene Resistance ( Cr 3) to White Pine Blister Rust in Pinus strobiformis (Southwestern White Pine)

Southwestern white pine (Pinus strobiformis) is native to the U.S. and Mexico and is susceptible to the pathogen Cronartium ribicola, which causes the disease white pine blister rust. A major gene, Cr3, confers resistance to the disease. While Cr3 has been observed at low frequen...

Beyond RMSE: The GEDI imputed waveform product minimizes artificial homogeneity evident in existing global forest height maps

The models that produce most existing forest height maps minimize mean individual prediction errors quantified by metrics such as Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). However, when predictor data do not explain all height variability in the training sample, this objective function lead...