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Maintaining site productivity on forested lands within the National Forest System is a Federal mandate. To meet this mandate, soil conditions on timber harvest units within the Northern Region of the USDA Forest Service cannot exceed a threshold of 15% areal extent of detrimental soil disturbance (DSD; defined as a combination of compaction, puddli...
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... for the areal extent of post-harvest and post-site preparation DSD were collected from 409 individual tim- ber harvest units from 11 National Forests in the Northern Region ( Figure 1). Only data collected after the last revi- sion of the SQS (post 1999) were considered for this study. ...
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The study identified and analyzed land use patterns between 1960 and 2005, and examined the forces underlying land use change and projects the future pattern of land use change in the study area. Both primary and secondary data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and geospatial techniques of GIS and Remote Sensing. The results show...
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... Then, the straight distance was measured between the pole and the bottom of the rut. Similar soil disturbance assessment methods were introduced by Reeves et al. [23] and Lee et al. [12]. ...
... Then, the straight distance was measured between the pole and the bottom of the rut. Similar soil disturbance assessment methods were introduced by Reeves et al. [23] and Lee et al. [12]. Tracks are identified but are faint and shallow Topsoil is exposed or mixed with subsoil left and right tracks of each trail were measured with a ruler using cross-sectional analysis, and the average was recorded. ...
... Then, the straight distance was measured between the pole and the bottom of the rut. Similar soil disturbance assessment methods were introduced by Reeves et al. [23] and Lee et al. [12]. Visible track marks are moderately deep Topsoil is partially present or mixed with subsoil and the average was recorded. ...
Recently, the use of powerful and heavy vehicles for timber harvesting on flat or slightly sloping terrains has been widely expanded to provide safe working conditions and high productivity. However, soil disturbances during ground-based mechanized operations in South Korea are not fully investigated and difficult to avoid. Therefore, we compared the soil displacement and compaction (bulk density and hydraulic conductivity) between two different operations: cut-to-length (CTL) logging with a harvester and forwarder, and whole-tree (WTH) logging with a harvester and skidder. After clear-cutting, severe visual disturbances and rut depths were more prevalent in the forwarding trails than in the skidding trails. The CTL harvesting method created larger amounts of slash (6.9 kg/m2) along the trails than the WTH harvesting did (1.8 kg/m2). We found a significant difference in the compaction between the reference and the track and a negative correlation between the slash quantity values and the percentage increase in compaction. Our results showed that using skidding extraction can cause more severe impacts than forwarding extraction. Thus, these results may be helpful in understanding the influence of ground-based CTL and WTH harvesting operations and achieving best practices to minimize the environmental impacts on soil.
... Reeves et al. [25] also proposed that seasonality was a main factor, and included the interaction of the harvest season × land type as a key variable in their model, along with slope and aspect. We evaluated two equipment types in this study, skyline (cable suspension of logs) and tractor (log skidders) [19]. The result was that the tractor-skidder units were significantly lower in NDVI values and higher in DSD values (Table 6). ...
Wildfires have nearly become a guaranteed annual event in most western National Forests. Severe fire effects can be mitigated with a goal of minimizing the hydrologic response and promoting soil and vegetation recovery towards the pre-disturbance condition. Sometimes, post-fire actions include salvage logging to recover timber value and to remove excess fuels. Salvage logging was conducted after three large wildfires on the Lolo National Forest in Montana, USA, between 2017 and 2019. We evaluated detrimental soil disturbance (DSD) on seven units that were burned at low, moderate, and high soil burn severity in 2022, three to five years after the logging occurred. We found a range of exposed soil of 5%–25% and DSD from 3% to 20%, and these values were significantly correlated at r = 0.88. Very-high-resolution WorldView-2 imagery that coincided with the field campaign was used to calculate Normal Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI) across the salvaged areas; we found that NDVI values were significantly correlated to DSD at r = 0.87. We were able to further examine this relationship and determined NDVI threshold values that corresponded to high-DSD areas, as well as develop a model to estimate the contributions of equipment type, seasonality, topography, and burn severity to DSD. A decision-making tool which combines these factors and NDVI is presented to support land managers in planning, evaluating, and monitoring disturbance from post-fire salvage logging.
... Mechanized ground-based timber harvest systems have the largest disturbance effect on soil as compared to skyline, helicopter, or tethered operations (Bockheim et al. 1975;Chase et al. 2019;Laffan et al. 2001;Miller and Sirois 1986;Miller et al. 2004;Page-Dumroese et al. 2006;Reeves et al. 2013). Ground-based logging is responsible for the greatest extent and degree of soil disturbance in the Northern Region of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (Reeves et al. 2011), and these results are consistent with other studies (Bockheim et al. 1975;Miller et al. 2004). ...
... Operator experience is another component of reducing soil impacts (Reeves et al. 2011). Soil scientists may assess soil conditions before harvest operations and prescribe objectives for soil conditions, but logging operators are the key to limiting soil disturbance during operations (Curran et al. 2007). ...
... Timber harvest operations conducted on steep slopes involve felling trees with a chainsaw, attaching them to a cable, and then extracting them by partially or completing suspending them above the soil (Garren et al. 2019). When logs are completely suspended, there is less overall soil disturbance than in ground-based operations (Allen et al. 1999;Cromack et al. 1978;Dyrness 1965;Miller and Sirois 1986;Reeves et al. 2011;Tepp 2002). However, partial suspension means that logs are dragged across the soil, resulting in greater amounts of exposed mineral soil and rutting (Youngblood 2000). ...
Soil productivity is essential to the sustained production of forest ecosystem goods and services. Timber harvests may lead to negative ecological impacts to the soil environment, thus reducing both soil and forest long-term productivity. Impacts caused by timber harvests are site-specific, and soil monitoring at various times post-harvest is critical to understanding both short-and long-term damage. Soil compaction is one of the most important issues that arise from harvest operations because it can alter many soil properties and processes including soil bulk density, gas diffusivity, and water holding capacity. Changes in these factors, and others, can lead to lower plant productivity. Additional impacts from timber harvests include soil displacement, rutting, and puddling (smeared soil pores). Soil and site characteristics influence the degree to which the soil is prone to disturbance, as well as rock-fragment content. Understanding the degree, extent, distribution, and duration of soil disturbance is key to determining how long the impacts may last and whether soil restoration activities are needed. We highlight the literature about long-term soil recovery after timber harvests and review the types of impacts, harvest operation methods, and recovery times.
... This study of soil recovery after DSD is critical to understanding the relationships between soil physical properties at the time of timber management activities and direct effects on DSD recovery speed. Other variables that we did not include in our resampling effort were slope, aspect, elevation, harvest type, cutting method, and operational period, but they were shown to be important in a separate study on the KNF (Reeves et al. 2011). A key finding is that the DSD recovery rate is not constant; most recovery occurs during the first 3 to 5 years after operations cease. ...
... (2) soil structure changes associated with compaction take a long time to recover; and (3) compaction occurring on saturated soil causes compaction deep within the soil profile (Napper et al. 2009;Page-Dumroese et al. 2006;Reeves et al. 2011). The degree of equipment-caused DSD, if any, often depends on soil texture and moisture. ...
Determining the extent of soil property changes following forest management activities (e.g. timber harvest, fuels abatement, site preparation) is an ongoing concern for land managers. Monitoring the long-term effects of various harvest operations and fuel treatment methods on soil physical properties and hydrologic function is critical to maintaining forest productivity. Both the initial and subsequent sampling efforts over a 20 year time frame (1992 through 2006) displayed that about 86 percent of the units resampled had a reduction in DSD when compared to the original soil monitoring data. Processes that contribute to soil recovery include freeze-thaw cycles, wet-dry cycles, vegetative regrowth, and soil organic matter inputs. Soil recovery is logarithmic with the greatest recovery occurring in the first 3 to 5 years particularly in volcanic ash influenced soils. Long-term DSD is usually associated with skid trails, temporary roads, and log landings.
... This study of soil recovery after DSD is critical to understanding the relationships between soil physical properties at the time of timber management activities and direct effects on DSD recovery speed. Other variables that we did not include in our resampling effort were slope, aspect, elevation, harvest type, cutting method, and operational period, but they were shown to be important in a separate study on the KNF (Reeves et al. 2011). A key finding is that the DSD recovery rate is not constant; most recovery occurs during the first 3 to 5 years after operations cease. ...
... (2) soil structure changes associated with compaction take a long time to recover; and (3) compaction occurring on saturated soil causes compaction deep within the soil profile (Napper et al. 2009;Page-Dumroese et al. 2006;Reeves et al. 2011). The degree of equipment-caused DSD, if any, often depends on soil texture and moisture. ...
Presentation regarding soil compaction and recovery with time at a number of locations by re-sampling previously monitored timber sale locations (units) and comparing data collected between 1992-2006 with re-sampled data (2012-2013) on the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. Data collected displayed that between 84-86% of the re-sampled units had reduced detrimental soil disturbance values with the bulk of the remaining detrimental locations located on skid trails, temporary road prisms, and skyline corridors.
... WL occurs while the ground is frozen and able to support the weight of heavy logging equipment. Research shows that the winter harvest units had significantly less areal extent of detrimental soil disturbance (Reeves, et. al., 2011). As winter harvest conditions become sub-optimal (e.g., during snow melt) and the soil moisture content increases, detrimental soil disturbance is more likely to occur. It is imperative at this point of the harvest operation that the forest staff monitors harvest operations closely and halt harvest operations when site conditions become ...
... The timber harvesting activities can be detrimentally disturbed depending primarily on factors such as soil moisture during harvest operations, soil organic matter content, soil textural class, axle weight of the load applied, tire size, and the number of machine passes (Reeves et al., 2012). It is recommended that the detrimental soil disturbance, which is strongly related with sediment and water yields, should be estimated and studied in further research on the environmental impacts of logging operations within a forestry watershed. ...
In 2012, the Halstead Fire of Salmon-Challis National Forest affected approximately 174,000 acres of forest. The post-fire logging operation to recover marketable timber calls for an extensive investigation on the environmental impacts of logging activity towards forestry recovery and sediment/water yields. This study analyzed these issues and compared seasonal differences between winter and summer logging using ArcSWAT. The 95,275-ac watershed was divided into three sub-watersheds for analyses. Corresponding to fire damage levels, land types of barren, grass, and shrub were assigned to areas with high, medium, and low severities, respectively. Four post-fire scenarios were simulated: No Recovery (NR) – the land type distribution remains unaltered after the fire and no logging activities; No Action (NA) – natural forestry recovery without logging operation; Summer Logging (SL) – forest recovery with logging activities in summer; Winter Logging (WL) – forest recovery with logging activities in winter. These scenarios were modeled using ArcSWAT from 2012 to 2019, with the proposed logging operation from 2015 till 2019. The outputs indicate that NR and SL can generate higher sediment/water yields; while NA and WL have similar yields as 95% of NR or SL. For the entire watershed, SL can generate 0.64 Mg/ha or 7,798 Mg/yr sediment more than WL, as well as 6,573 kg nitrogen and 1,827 kg phosphorus more than WL annually. The logging activities in winter after wildfires may be an optimal solution to recover marketable timber in terms of minimal environmental impacts towards the forestry ecosystem.
Read More: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/9780784479322.021
... WL occurs while the ground is frozen and able to support the weight of heavy logging equipment. Research shows that the winter harvest units had significantly less areal extent of detrimental soil disturbance (Reeves, et. al., 2011). As winter harvest conditions become sub-optimal (e.g., during snow melt) and the soil moisture content increases, detrimental soil disturbance is more likely to occur. It is imperative at this point of the harvest operation that the forest staff monitors harvest operations closely and halt harvest operations when site conditions become ...
... The timber harvesting activities can be detrimentally disturbed depending primarily on factors such as soil moisture during harvest operations, soil organic matter content, soil textural class, axle weight of the load applied, tire size, and the number of machine passes (Reeves et al., 2012). It is recommended that the detrimental soil disturbance, which is strongly related with sediment and water yields, should be estimated and studied in further research on the environmental impacts of logging operations within a forestry watershed. ...
Stochastic rainfall generators are widely used to produce synthetic rainfall time-series
estimates in areas that lack adequate observed rainfall data. Many of these generators assume
stationarity conditions. These generators are able to produce thousands of years of precipitation
estimates in a time-efficient manner. Thus, many “tail” events can be gleaned from these
extended precipitation estimates which can then be used to assess the impact of precipitation
induced flooding. Therefore, rainfall generators can be used as a useful tool for assessing the
flood risk in basins that have sparse observed rainfall records. The main objective of this study is
to assess the synthetic rainfall estimates obtained through the use of multi-site and single-site
rainfall generators. Mekong River Basin (MRB) is one of the largest river basins (~795,000 km2)
in the world. Due to its diverse terrain, land-use and land-cover types, and the large areal
coverage, it includes a wide array of hydro-climatic zones which greatly affects the distribution
of rainfall within the basin. These factors make the task of generating synthetic rainfall in the
MRB a challenging one. Nevertheless, the study-results show that rainfall generators show great
promise for large river basins such as the Mekong.
... WL occurs while the ground is frozen and able to support the weight of heavy logging equipment. Research shows that the winter harvest units had significantly less areal extent of detrimental soil disturbance (Reeves, et. al., 2011). As winter harvest conditions become sub-optimal (e.g., during snow melt) and the soil moisture content increases, detrimental soil disturbance is more likely to occur. It is imperative at this point of the harvest operation that the forest staff monitors harvest operations closely and halt harvest operations when site conditions become ...
... The timber harvesting activities can be detrimentally disturbed depending primarily on factors such as soil moisture during harvest operations, soil organic matter content, soil textural class, axle weight of the load applied, tire size, and the number of machine passes (Reeves et al., 2012). It is recommended that the detrimental soil disturbance, which is strongly related with sediment and water yields, should be estimated and studied in further research on the environmental impacts of logging operations within a forestry watershed. ...
As urbanization increases, impervious surfaces expand and this results in significant changes to urban hydrology. These impervious surfaces result in stormwater runoff that carry pollutants along its path to nearby waterways. Implementation of Low Impact Development (LID) techniques, and permeable pavement systems specifically, are commonly used to manage stormwater runoff and improve quality of water resources near urban areas. Hydrological performance of the permeable pavements, however, deteriorates over time mainly due to the sediment clogging on the surface. The effectiveness of permeable pavements and ultimately the captured runoff volume can be correlated to the extent of clogging on the surface. The clogging progression rates vary based on location, site characteristics, and rain events variables. Twenty one laboratory Permeable Interlocking Concrete Paver (PICP) models with different combinations of slope, gap size, and joint filling material were built and exposed to theoretical stormwater events such that correlations could be established between the physical system components and the progression of surface clogging. This study utilizes a neural network model to predict the clogging progression rates by different PICPs characteristics. The results indicate that the model is capable of predicting the extent of clogging along the length of permeable pavement with 98% accuracy. By predicting the precise cumulative rainfall depth based on the clogging length and the PICP specifications, the hydrologic operation for each configuration and at any rainfall depth is accessible. By better understanding the effects of pavement characteristics and choosing the most efficient pavement configuration, systems could be better designed to reduce clogging and more efficient maintenance schedules could be defined.
... Finally, increased soil compaction may lead to the loss of soil nutrients and thus an overall long-term reduction of soil fertility and site productivity [8,12]. Bulk density increases above a threshold of 15% are considered to be particularly harmful to tree growth and constitute a detrimental soil disturbance [13,14]. ...
Increased soil compaction following harvest traffic is an inroad for adverse changes in soil biological properties and processes, soil microbial activity, bacterial communities, and growth and development of plant roots. This study investigated the impacts of three levels of traffic intensity (3–6, 7–14, and 15+ passes) of a Timberjack 450C skidder on changes in several chemical soil properties at two levels of skid trail slope gradients (gentle =<20% and steep >20% inclination) in the Hyrcanian forest. Skidding increased soil bulk density between 19% and 39% and, averaged over both slope gradients, reduced amounts of soil organic carbon (33–67%), concentrations of nitrogen (51–80%), phosphorous (0–17%), potassium (11–36%), and hydrogen ions (78–98%) compared to undisturbed areas. Most soil damage occurred after a few skidder passes, particularly on steep slopes that generally experienced the highest level of soil deterioration. The primary mechanism that induced immediate chemical soil changes was an uplift and exposure of deeper soil layers in response to compression and displacement of the former soil surface. Skidding can jeopardize the sustainability of forest ecosystems by creating unfavorable changes in soil characteristics and nutrient status.
... Logging operator skill has been noted to effect disturbance levels among similar harvest systems (Pinard et al. 2000;Stone 2002). Sale administrator knowledge of local conditions and operator tendencies also play an important role in keeping soil disturbance to acceptable levels (Reeves et al. 2011). Although these factors may have added to the variation in mean soil disturbance among National Forests, it is reasonable to assume operator skill and sale administrator knowledge and competency varies among National Forests as well. ...
Many public land management agencies monitor forest soils for levels of disturbance re-lated to management activities. Although several soil disturbance monitoring protocols based on visual observation have been developed to assess the amount and types of distur-bance caused by forest management, no common method is currently used on National Forest lands in the United States. We present data on relative soil disturbance based on harvest system from National Forests throughout Montana and Idaho. Because each National Forest uses its own method for data collection, we developed a common, well-de-fined visual class system for analyses based on the existing soil monitoring data that accu-rately normalized disparate classifications. Using this common system, we detected differences in soil disturbance between the ground-based and overhead harvest systems; however, no site attributes (slope, aspect, soil texture, etc.) affected soil disturbance levels. The individual National Forest was the most important factor explaining differences among harvest units. The effect of National Forest may be explained by different forest types, soils, harvest practices, or administrative procedures, but the most likely explanation is differ-ences among the various qualitative classification approaches to soil disturbance monitor-ing. Although this analysis used a large data set, our inability to correlate disturbance with site characteristics and the differences between monitoring methods points to the need for common terms and comparable guidelines for soil disturbance monitoring.
