Roads are important ecological features of forest landscapes, but their cause-andeffect relationships with other ecosystem components are only recently becoming included in integrated landscape analyses. Simulation models can help us to understand how forested landscapes respond over time to disturbance and socioeconomic factors, and potentially to address the important role roads play in these processes.

Agencies and organizations deploy various strategies in response to environmental challenges, including the formulation of policy, programs, and regulations. Citizen-based environmental stewardship is increasingly seen as an innovative and important approach to improving and conserving landscape health. A new research focus on the stewardship of urban natural resources is being launched by the U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest region. Early scoping efforts are addressing various scales of human systems ranging from individuals to organizations to the entire positive "footprint" of stewardship on the land. This report addresses a fundamental need—to understand and describe civic environmental stewardship in urban settings. Stewardship has been described and defined in diverse ways within a variety of contexts, including the philosophical literature of environmentalism, agency program descriptions, and outreach by sponsoring organizations. Constructing a framework to convey the layered meanings of stewardship will help to focus and guide future research. A cognitive mapping technique was used to elicit responses to the question "What is environmental stewardship?" Semistructured interviews were conducted with representatives of nine Seattle environmental organizations, a group of practitioners who collectively represent over 100 years of experience in the field. Program planners and managers have particularly direct experiences of stewardship. Cognitive mapping enables participants to explore, then display, their particular knowledge and perceptions about an idea or activity. Analysis generated thematic, structural representations of shared concepts. Results show that the practitioners have multilayered perceptions of stewardship, from environmental improvement to community building, and from actions to outcomes. The resulting conceptual framework demonstrates the full extent of stewardship activity and meaning, which can aid stewardship sponsors to improve stewardship programs, leading to better experiences for participants and higher quality outcomes for projects and environments.

The Chugach and Tongass National Forests are changing, possibly in response to global warming.

Earth's climate is changing, as evidenced by warming temperatures, increased temperature variability, fluctuating precipitation patterns, and climate-related environmental disturbances.

Sustainable working landscapes are critical to the conservation of biodiversity in the American West and its cultures of rural ranching and forestry.

Effectively addressing wildfire risk to communities on large multi-owner landscapes requires an understanding of the biophysical factors that influence risk, such as fuel loads, topography, and weather, and social factors such as the capacity and willingness for communities to engage in fire-mitigation activities.

Land use and climate change are two key factors with the potential to affect stream conditions and fish habitat. Since the 1950s, Washington and Oregon have required forest practices designed to mitigate the effects of timber harvest on streams and fish.

In the Pacific Northwest, native salmon and trout are some of the toughest survivors on the block. Over time, these fish have evolved behavioral adaptations to natural disturbances, and they rely on these disturbances to deliver coarse sediment and wood that become complex stream habitat. Powerful disturbances such as wildfire, postfire landslides, and debris flows may be detrimental to fish populations in the short term, but over time, they enrich instream habitats, enhancing long-term fish survival and productivity.

Interest in landscape-scale approaches to fire management and forest restoration is growing with the realization that these approaches are critical to maintaining healthy forests and protecting nearby communities. However, coordinated planning and action across multiple ownerships have been elusive because of differing goals and forest management styles among landowners. Scientists with the Pacific Northwest Research Station and their colleagues recognized that working at the landscape scale requires integrating the biophysical, social, and economic dimensions of the problem, and this necessitates collecting new types of information and inventing new tools.

A balanced diet and regular exercise are fundamental for good health, and a daily dose of nature may be equally important. Nearly 40 years of research has demonstrated that “metro nature”—nature found in urban environments, such as parks or tree-lined streets—provides positive and measurable health benefits and improves people’s quality of life.

Resource managers have long mapped biophysical forest data. Often lacking, however, is relevant social science data for understanding the variety of human needs a given landscape fulfills.

Air quality is a critical issue affecting the health of billions of people worldwide, yet often little is known about what is in the air we breathe. To reduce air pollution’s health impacts, pollution sources must first be reliably identified. Otherwise, it is impossible to design and effectively enforce environmental standards. However, urban networks of air quality monitors are often too widely spaced to identify the sources of air pollutants, especially for pollutants that do not disperse far from their sources. Developing high-resolution pollution maps with data from these widely spaced monitors is problematic.

Millions of people head to federal lands every year for recreation—891 million visits in 2016 alone. These visits have significant economic implications, not only for restaurants, resorts, outfitters, and other businesses near recreation sites, but also for the people actually participating in outdoor recreation.

Accurate measurements of natural resources are a prerequisite for resource assessment. Demetrios Gatziolis, a scientist with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, and his colleagues with Washington State University developed and tested protocols for using structure-from-motion photogrammetry to obtain data that can be used to construct 3-dimensional (3-D) representations of trees, other vegetation, and down wood. This type of photogrammetry is a remote-sensing technique based on a sequence of digital images or video footage. Gatziolis and his colleagues focused on developing protocols for using it under the forest canopy. Their method can serve as a guide for others interested in obtaining inexpensive, precise 3-D data of trees in field plots. The researchers continue to perfect the technology so it can be reliably deployed by field crews with a minimal amount of training.

Principal findings of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study are presented in an annotated bibliography and summarized in tabular form by site, discipline (ecosystem component), treatment type, and major theme. Composed of 12 sites, the FFS is a comprehensive multidisciplinary experiment designed to evaluate the costs and ecological consequences of alternative fuel reduction treatments in seasonally dry forests of the United States. The FFS has a common experimental design across the 12-site network, with each site a fully replicated experiment that compares four treatments: prescribed fi re, mechanical treatments, mechanical + prescribed fire, and an unmanipulated control. We measured treatment cost and variables within several components of the ecosystem, including vegetation, the fuel bed, soils, bark beetles, tree diseases, and wildlife in the same 10-ha experimental units. This design allowed us to assemble a fairly comprehensive picture of ecosystem response to treatment at the site scale, and to compare treatment response across a wide variety of conditions.

The Malheur model for fire-caused delayed mortality is presented as an easily interpreted graph (mortality-probability calculator) as part of a one-page field guide that allows the user to determine postfire probability of mortality for ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.).

Black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill) B.S.P) is the dominant forest cover type in interior Alaska and is prone to frequent, stand-replacing wildfires.

We used two data sets to evaluate stream and watershed condition for sixth-field watersheds in each aquatic province within the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) area: stream data and upslope data. The stream evaluation was based on inchannel data (e.g., substrate, pieces of large wood, water temperature, pool frequency, and macroinvertebrates) we sampled from 2002 to 2009 (193 watersheds) as part of a repeating sample design. We just completed our first round of sampling, so only current condition was calculated for this data set. When condition scores for the inchannel data were grouped into categories, relatively few fell into the low (10 percent) and very low (1 percent) categories. The majority of inchannel attribute scores fell into the moderate (35 percent) and high (41 percent) condition ranges, with relatively few (12 percent) in the very high category. For low-scoring watersheds, water temperature was often the most influential factor. Aquatic invertebrate scores also appeared influential in producing the low scores.

We describe a food-based system for quantitatively evaluating habitat quality for deer called the Forage Resource Evaluation System for Habitat and provide its rationale and suggestions for use. The system was developed as a tool for wildlife biologists and other natural resource managers and planners interested in evaluating habitat quality and, especially, comparing two or more patches of habitat or the same patch at different seasons or under different conditions. It is based on the quantity (of biomass) and quality (digestible energy and digestible protein) of the habitat's food resources in relation to user-specified metabolic requirements of deer (which differ with species, age, sex, season, and reproductive status). It uses a linear programming algorithm to determine the suitable forage that can sustain deer at the specified requirements.

A set of 7 variations on the 3 column equal height theme. All full width with header and footer, a mixture of fixed and percentage column widths and no images.

A centered dropdown menu, using the latest centering technique, with flyout images

A second version of the tabbed pages with a default page open on entry.

A click version of the Light Box for all browsers except Safari and Chrome

A simplified method of producing a centered dropdown and flyout menu with variable widths depending on text content.

A flyout version of the 'any width' dropdown menu.

A restyled version that allows dropdowns and flyouts to the left and right. Centered top level list and different color sub levels. Even works in IE5.5.

The fourth in the skeleton menu series restyled to use recent developments to make it work in all versions if IE from IE5.5 to IE8.

A second 'any width' flyout menu, this time with an over run area and gapping between menu items.

A dropdown menu that uses a table to hold the dropdown information.

A dropdown menu with any width sub menus and the option of left or right dropdown/flyouts.

A single level dropdown menu with multi-columns, headings and curved corners using sliding doors techniques for the dropdowns.

A single level dropdown anywidth menu with dropdown that are centered beneath the top level links.

A dropline anywidth menu with droplines that are centered beneath the top level links which are also centered.

A multi level dropdown flyout anywidth menu with dropdown and flyouts that are centered beneath the top level links, with the ability to have a left or right flyout.

A droplist menu with method of setting the number of columns in each list and the option of a full width bottom bar for extra linking.

A version of my mini tabbed pages with the ability to have a tab open on page entry.

As promised, the previous filmstrip gallery rotated into a vertical format with a few enhancements.

Another version of the CSS only fisheye menu, this time with expanding images and associated text.

A definition list menu using the new menu system to simplify the styling

A click gallery using 'Previous' and 'Next' buttons to navigate, in which the large image is permanently on screen until another image is chosen EVEN when refreshing the page. With descriptive text and linking option.

A click gallery using 'Previous' and 'Next' preview images to navigate, in which the large image is permanently on screen until another image is chosen EVEN when refreshing the page. With descriptive text and linking option.

A dropdown menu using top level png images with the submenu used for image information.

Using CSS3 selectors to animate a series of static images.

Another menu using the float/drop technique using total background images with hover change and breadcrumb trail.

A flyline / dropdown menu with CSS3 enhancements for browsers that support animation.

A slide out menu with CSS3 enhancements for browsers that support animation.

A series of three galleries using timeAction for IE7 and IE8 only.

Using CSS3 to produce an animated sliding dropdown flyout menu.

A CSS only answer to javascript/jQuery pull-down information panels (version 2).

Using CSS3 to animate a set of thumbnail images.