Toward Geodesign for Watershed Restoration on the Fremont-Winema National Forest, Pacific Northwest, USA

Keith Reynolds,Philip Murphy,Steven Paplanus

doi:10.3390/su9050678

Keith Reynolds, Philip Murphy + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su9050678

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Abstract

Spatial decision support systems for forest management have steadily evolved over the past 20+ years in order to better address the complexities of contemporary forest management issues such as the sustainability and resilience of ecosystems on forested landscapes. In this paper, we describe and illustrate new features of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system that extend the system’s traditional support for landscape analysis and strategic planning to include a simple approach to feature-based tactical planning priorities. The study area for this work was the Chewaucan watershed of the Fremont-Winema National Forest, located in south-central Oregon, USA. The analysis of strategic priorities recommended five subwatersheds as being of high priority for restoration activities, based primarily on decision criteria related to the stream accessibility to headwaters and upland condition. Among high priority subwatersheds, the most common tactical action recommended was the removal of artificial barriers to fish passages. Other high priority tactical actions recommended in high priority subwatersheds to improve fish habitats were reducing the road density and restoring riparian vegetation. In the discussion, we conclude by describing how the simple tactical planning methods illustrated in this paper can be extended in EMDS to provide a more sophisticated hybrid approach to strategic and tactical planning that can evaluate alternative portfolios of designed management actions applied across landscapes. The latter planned improvement to decision support capabilities in EMDS encapsulates Carl Steinitz’s concept of geodesign.

Highlights

IntroductionDecision support systems (DSS) for environmental analysis and planning began appearing in the literature in significant numbers from about the mid-1980s
Spatial decision support systems for forest management have steadily evolved over the past 20+ years in order to better address the complexities of contemporary forest management issues such as the sustainability [1] and resilience [2,3] of ecosystems of forested landscapes, drawing on principles of ecosystem management [4] and processes for implementing adaptive management [5,6]
Decision support systems (DSS) in the forest sector include a reforestation system that supports operational planning for tree species selection [10]; a web-based information service that supports the forecasting, diagnosis, and prevention and control of forest pests in cultivated forests [11,12]; a web-based system that supports the application of basic principles for the sustainable management of rural forests [13]; a system promoting management to reduce wildfire damage in lowland pine forests [14]; and a system that uses multi-criteria decision analysis to select the best use of forest resources to promote sustainable forest management [15]

Summary

Introduction

Decision support systems (DSS) for environmental analysis and planning began appearing in the literature in significant numbers from about the mid-1980s. These earlier systems were mostly nonspatial in nature, but this class of system remains common today. More recent examples of SDSS include an agent-based system for integrating a suite of decision support tools to support multiple forest management objectives [17]; a system to determine cutting intensities and cutting cycles on a landscape scale [18,19]; a system targeted to private forestland owners to guide forest management decisions [20]; a system to estimate ecological security and related issues of environmental protection in land-use decisions [21]; and a land-use planning system with a particular focus on promoting forest carbon sequestration [22]

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