Forest soil quality standards should be quantifiable

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Forest Restoration and Monitoring—Emphasis on Soil Monitoring. Forest restoration is currently a primary management objective in forests throughout the Rocky Mountain West where land managers attempt to return the ecological integrity of low elevation, historically fire-maintained forest ecosystems that were inadvertently altered during the past 100 years of fire suppression and timber management (Covington 2000; Crist et al. 2008). Success in forest restoration efforts requires monitoring of successes and impacts to allow for reevaluation and adjustment of activities. There is, however, a lack of project level monitoring on forest restoration activities on federal lands to qualify assumptions of long-term impacts or successes of forest restoration efforts (DeLuca et al. 2008). The United States Forest Service (USFS) has implemented forest restoration treatments broadly across the western United States in recent years. Adaptive management policies create a framework whereby forest managers can evaluate the effectiveness of their restoration treatments using ecosystem attributes such as wildlife, water quality, and soil productivity. Soil productivity is integral to a healthy functioning forest ecosystem; therefore, monitoring of soil properties is an important and logical goal of USFS forest monitoring efforts. Current Soil Productivity Monitoring. Current USFS policy uses soil monitoring to…