Forests are being considered as one option for stabilizing or reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forests can reduce atmospheric CO2 by storing carbon in biomass, soil, and products and can be used as biofuel offsetting fossil fuel. However, forests grown into perpetuity will provide no long term CO2 reduction because eventually carbon losses will equal or exceed carbon gain.

Forecasting number of trees in a stand over diameter classes is customarily done through the use of probability density functions. Many distributions have been utilized such as the beta, weibull, gama and lognormal.. Hafley and Schreuder examined the skewness and kurtosis of various statisitcal distributions as a measure of the flexibility of the distributions in reguard to their change in shape.

Wildland fires are an integral component of the ecosystems of tropical pine rocklands and subtropical pine flatwoods. Fuels such as leaf litter and understory vegetation accumulated rapidly and in less than a decade can reach dangerous levels that can drastically increase fire intensity in both prescribed fires and wildfires. Land use changes in the regions occupied by these forests have resulted in the exclusion of fire from many areas that formerly burned frequently. Land development has resulted in a mix of land uses, some of which make fire management difficult. These changes have created...

The goal of this review and synthesis of the literature, published and unpublished, is to describe the major processes that shape and influence the aquatic habitats and fish communities in the Yazoo Mississippi Delta and to outline a program of research. The YMD is influenced by the large geographic and temporal scales of the Mississippi River watershed.

Invasions of nonnative plants into forests of the Southern United States continue to spread and include new species, increasingly eroding forest productivity, hindering forest use and management activities, and degrading diversity and wildlife habitat. This book provides the latest information on how to organize and enact prevention programs, build strategies, implement integrated procedures for management, and proceed towards site rehabilitation and restoration. Effective control prescriptions are provided for 56 nonnative plants and groups currently invading the forests of the 13 Southern...

Throughout the United States, a wide variety of efforts are underway to develop economically sound and environmentally sustainable bioenergy production systems. Several Federal policies, such as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, support the establishment of biomass-to-energy systems. Scientists in government and nongovernmental agencies are taking the initiative to improve biomass production, processing, and conversion. Entrepreneurs are developing and marketing biobased products for use as bioenergy. Consumers are creating a demand for alternative forms of fuel and power...

Forests add value to different groups in different ways, so it is important to understand our community's view of value. As a homeowner in Buncombe County, I value the trees on our lot for their shade that lowers our cooling bills in the summer. My wife, a gardener, asks which trees to plant to replace the ones that were blown over by the hurricanes in 2004. My son, an avid hiker, enjoys the walks from our yard into a neighboring 100 acre wood, where a conservation easement protects the forest land. Though these are personal examples, the breadth of how our forest adds value to my family is...

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail is a continuous marked footpath extending more than 2,175 miles across the Appalachian Mountains from the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine to the summit of Springer Mountain in Georgia. It forms a greenway that connects more than 75 public land areas in 14 states. The AT was conceived in 1921, completed in 1937, and established as the first National Scenic Trail by Congress with the passage of the National Trails System Act in 1968.

In recent years, outdoor recreation has become increasingly important on national forests across the United States. As a result, Forest Service managers provide a diverse set of recreation opportunities to the public and there is greater recognition of the economic activity that public recreation can generate in local communities. Accurate visitation estimates are required for national, regional, and forest-level decisionmaking and planning. Specifically, the estimators are needed to determine benefits and impacts of recreational use on other forest resources and local economies. Estimates...

This technical document supports the Forest Service's requirement to assess the status of renewable natural resources as mandated by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (RPA). It updates past reports on national and regional trends in population and harvest estimates for species classified as big game and small game. The trends reported here were derived from State Wildlife Agency biologists and supplemented with data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey for those bird species that are commonly sought by upland game hunters. Big game populations and...