Applegate River Watershed Forest Simulation Project

public meeting: project overview. October 20, 1997, 9:00-11:00 AM, BLM Medford Office

Applegate River Watershed Forest Simulation Project Presentation by Dr. K. Norman Johnson, College of Forestry, OSU

Project website: http://www.cof.orst.edu/research/safefor
Community Contact: Todd Kesterson, ph: 899-9982 (Watershed Council Office), fax: 899-1256, E-mail: arwc@mind.net


Norm Johnson gave the background of the "Safe Forest" modeling system used in Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project.
In the Sierra Project, some of the goals were as follows: 1) reduce high intensity fires in certain areas,
2) increase quantity of old forests, 3) improve watershed conditions, 4) produce sustainable level of timber harvest
The Applegate River Watershed Forest Simulation Project modeling system is based on the Safe Forest modeling system.

This project is funded by Oregon State University (OSU) from three primary sources: 1) endowment from Boise Cascade,
2) internal College of Forestry funds, 3) misc. federal grants.  Primary scientists (those working for months
on the project) are being paid.  Scientists working in advisory positions (working occasionally for a day) are
volunteering their time. The "clients" of this research project are the Applegate Partnership and Applegate River
Watershed Council. Norm would also like input from agency employees but was unable to predict how much time will be required.
He hopes to "stay out of the way" of agency personnel, respecting their busy schedules.  Norm emphasized that the researchers
must be able to do their work without being constrained by agency management goals;  this is a primary reason for using
OSU funding rather than agency funding.

The general goal of this project is to develop a model that can be used in watershed planning in order to assess different
management options.  ***There will be no clear answers from this model, only patterns of predicted outcomes from repeated
simulations. Based on preliminary meetings with the community, Norm has realized that people in the Applegate are
protective of the wide variety of forest types found in this area.  From previous experience, he has learned that people
like to see maps showing simulated change through time.  Both of these factors will be incorporated into this project,
though linking quantitative data to visual representations is a significant challenge.  Community goals for this project
will drive the model, and each goal must have measurements of attainment.  The overall goals are intentionally  general;
the subgoals are more specific. Some goals may not be able to be modeled accurately, but the most important issue is
to have the goals represented. Optimizing will be done on the goals for this project.  This means that a hierarchy will
be established with priority given to highest order goals.  The capabilities of modeling efforts can quickly be exceeded,
and given this recognition, the plan is to modify the model through time.

It is important that many people (including Applegate Partnership, Applegate River Watershed Council, community members,
etc.) be able to test various options using the model.  Therefore, the model must be relatively easy to use;
hopefully anyone will be able to run it with a bit of training.  The goal is to have a prototype of the model ready for
testing by the end of fall, at which time it will be presented to the public for input.  Pubic input is also encouraged
on the project website, which will be a forum for ideas and comments.  Instructions for posting messages are included
on the website. E-mail alerts will be sent to interested parties whenever key changes are made to the website.
Researchers will determine that the model is complete when: 1) Applegate Partnership is able to use the data,
2) technical people accept that "that's about as good as you can do, given the data", 3) funding for the project runs out.
The model should be completed by fall, 1998.

The model will incorporate the entire watershed, including the portion in California.  The most challenging aspect of the
project is characterizing watershed condition.  Only forested lands (including shrub communities and other veg. types) will be
included in simulations, but the condition of fish and wildlife habitat will be considered for all lands.  Fish are of particular
interest since one third of Rogue Basin coho habitat is in Applegate watershed.  Insects are also of great interest in this project
since they may have a larger impact on forests than fire.  Insect epidemics will eventually be included in the model.
To learn where high severity fires are likely to take place, modeling would simulate a variety of weather conditions over time,
taking into account various land management strategies.  Extreme weather will be modeled by adjusting the number of drought days.
Population growth will not be directly incorporated into this model.

Forest Service and BLM data are being used for this model as well as 1993 satellite data for the veg. layer.
The satellite data has a 75% confidence rating.  This model incorporates current land management policies for federal
and state lands as well as existing rights and responsibilities of private landowners.  There will be no effort on the part
of the research team to model changes in public policy.  The quality of any simulation will vary depending on the scale of
analysis and inclusion/exclusion of private land data.  Landscape design will only be done for this watershed if people want it,
and landscape analysis is not feasible until public and private lands are included in model.  The results from different scales
of landscape modeling may produce very different results, so scale should be considered in the planning process.




Public comments:

A goal for air quality should be added.   Simulations should then be conducted so that people understand tradeoffs
between fire suppression and controlled burns.

There should be a goal addressing the completion of this project.

On goal 5 (Provide a predictable and sustainable flow of sawtimber products...)  change saw timber to timber.

Cost effectiveness should be included in the goals: how much does it cost and how much wealth is produced.
Through these lofty goals, are we setting ourselves up for budgets that are unrealistic when it comes to treatment?

Some goals need to be met in order to fix past mistakes and because it is the right thing to do.  But the cost of
meeting such goals still need to be tracked.

Aesthetic and recreational values are included in the main project goals, but they do not carry over into the subgoals.
(This is an important point since the subgoals help to define how to measure the larger goals, and only the subgoals will be modeled.)

Aesthetics is a value judgment that you may want to drop as a goal.

There needs to be a way to evaluate public acceptance of various and sometimes competing aspects of the overall goals.

In order to address landscaped management, public and private lands must be incorporated into the model.

Landscape analysis may not be able to move forward until this project is complete.