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Francais
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| Forest Watersheds Program - Mission & Goals |
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Since 1977, NCASI member companies have recognized that water issues are crucial to future fiber supplies. Water quality and supply are routinely ranked by the public as top environmental concerns related to forest management. (See the Forestry and Water Quality presentation by Godbout, Reiter, and Ice at the 2003 NCASI West Coast Regional Meeting). One objective of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is to "protect the water quality in streams, lakes and other waterbodies."
The mission of the Forest Watershed Program is to develop, document, and communicate scientific information regarding the effects of forest practices and natural processes on aquatic resources. This includes developing or documenting solutions to undesirable watershed effects of forest practices.
Goals for the Forest Watershed Program are set by the Forest Watershed Task Group (FWTG). FWTG is comprised of forest industry watershed specialists and fisheries biologists. Oversight of FWTG comes from the Forest Environmental and Sustainability Task Group (FESTG) and the NCASI Operating Committee. A strategic plan developed |
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by the FWTG to address key management activities and a slide presentation providing an overview of the program are both available for download.
The current program addresses the three key management activities: roads, management near streams, and landscape management activities. Each of these topics has three component questions:
- Are the Best Management Practice Systems effective in reducing impacts?
- What are realistic goals?
- How do we develop high quality predictive tools?
A related question across all these management activities is how increasingly intensive forest management affects the environment and how practices can be modified to achieve environmental objectives. Below is a list of tasks included in this year’s program, which complement ongoing and recently completed efforts that deal with key watershed goals and issues.
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Alto Watershed Project – compare 1980s forest practice impacts with current and future practices.
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Alto Road Sediment Monitoring Project – evaluate the magnitude of road effects in a watershed.
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The utility of disconnecting road runoff from stream networks – how hydrologically connected roads are, and how we can manage them to reduce impacts (see the Stream Systems Technology Center Web site).
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Fish passage restrictions and needs – use modeling, experimental flumes, and field measurements to predict conditions where fish passage is impaired.
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Headwater stream cooperative project – support research on headwater streams functions.
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SEDMODL2 validation – validate the road sediment prediction model for western and southern road systems.
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Mica Creek Nutrient Analysis Technical Support – Analyze nutrient samples from a watershed-scale test of the Idaho Forest Practice rules.
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Louisiana DO project – continue work on natural dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in forest streams and how DO is affected by forest management using Best Management Practices.
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Salmon population condition indices – Explore measure of salmonid (trout, salmon, char) population conditions in forest streams as a direct measure of response to forest practices.
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AgDRIFT interception model component – measure the role of vegetation interception in attenuation of chemical delivery to streams.
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Hinkle Creek Watershed Study – Support the first watershed study on private land in Oregon since adoption of the Forest Practices Act.
For more information about the NCASI Forest Watershed Program, contact Dr. George Ice at gice@ncasi.org. | |
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| Last Updated: December 6, 2006 (1:58 PM) |
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