Production possibility frontiers and socioecological tradeoffs for restoration of fire adapted forests.

We used spatial optimization to analyze alternative restoration scenarios and quantify tradeoffs for a large, multifaceted restoration program to restore resiliency to forest landscapes in the western US. We specifically examined tradeoffs between provisional ecosystem services, fire protection, and the amelioration of key ecological stressors. The results revealed that attainment of multiple restoration objectives was constrained due to the joint spatial patterns of ecological conditions and socioeconomic values. We also found that current restoration projects are substantially suboptimal, perhaps the result of compromises in the collaborative planning process used by federal planners, or operational constraints on forest management activities. The juxtaposition of ecological settings with human values generated sharp tradeoffs, especially with respect to community wildfire protection versus generating revenue to support restoration and fire protection activities. The analysis and methods can be leveraged by ongoing restoration programs in many ways including: 1) integrated prioritization of restoration activities at multiple scales on public and adjoining private lands, 2) identification and mapping of conflicts between ecological restoration and socioeconomic objectives, 3) measuring the efficiency of ongoing restoration projects compared to the optimal production possibility frontier, 4) consideration of fire transmission among public and private land parcels as a prioritization metric, and 5) finding socially optimal regions along the production frontier as part of collaborative restoration planning.

[1]  Hugh P. Possingham,et al.  Marxan with Zones: Software for optimal conservation based land- and sea-use zoning , 2009, Environ. Model. Softw..

[2]  P. Balvanera,et al.  Insight, part of a Special Feature on Ecosystem Service Trade-offs across Global Contexts and Scales A sustainability framework for assessing trade-offs in ecosystem services , 2015 .

[3]  P. Hessburg,et al.  Wildfire and Management of Forests and Native Fishes: Conflict or Opportunity for Convergent Solutions? , 2010 .

[4]  Carl N. Skinner,et al.  Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments , 2005 .

[5]  Dana M Infante,et al.  Joint analysis of stressors and ecosystem services to enhance restoration effectiveness , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[6]  Jerry F. Franklin,et al.  A Restoration Framework for Federal Forests in the Pacific Northwest , 2012 .

[7]  William L. Baker,et al.  Managing fire-prone forests in the western United States , 2006 .

[8]  K. Gaston,et al.  Spatial covariance between biodiversity and other ecosystem service priorities , 2009 .

[9]  A. Ager,et al.  Prioritization of Forest Restoration Projects: Tradeoffs between Wildfire Protection, Ecological Restoration and Economic Objectives , 2015 .

[10]  J. Aronson,et al.  Restoration of ecosystem services and biodiversity: conflicts and opportunities. , 2011, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[11]  Sarah McCaffrey,et al.  Collaborative Implementation for Ecological Restoration on US Public Lands: Implications for Legal Context, Accountability, and Adaptive Management , 2015, Environmental Management.

[12]  John Bolte,et al.  Examining fire-prone forest landscapes as coupled human and natural systems , 2014 .

[13]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group 10-2011 A simulation of probabilistic wildfire risk components for the continental United States , 2017 .

[14]  Geoff Cockfield,et al.  Managing trade-offs in landscape restoration and revegetation projects. , 2008, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[15]  M. Finney.  An Overview of FlamMap Fire Modeling Capabilities , 2006 .

[16]  Jerry F. Franklin,et al.  Forest Restoration and Fire: Principles in the Context of Place , 2004 .

[17]  Courtney A. Schultz,et al.  The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program: A History and Overview of the First Projects , 2012 .

[18]  Mark J. Kennard,et al.  Multi-Action Planning for Threat Management: A Novel Approach for the Spatial Prioritization of Conservation Actions , 2015, PloS one.

[19]  H. Possingham,et al.  Spatial conservation prioritization: Quantitative methods and computational tools , 2009 .

[20]  A. Ager,et al.  Chapter 8: Simulating mortality from forest insects and diseases , 2004 .

[21]  A. Larson,et al.  Tree spatial patterns in fire-frequent forests of western North America, including mechanisms of pattern formation and implications for designing fuel reduction and restoration treatments , 2012 .

[22]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  TRADE-OFFS IN ECOSYSTEM-SCALE OPTIMIZATION OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT POLICIES , 2004 .

[23]  S. Nielsen,et al.  Prioritizing Ecosystems, Species, and Sites for Restoration , 2009 .

[24]  J. Geist,et al.  Suggested stocking levels for forest stands in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. Forest Service research note , 1994 .

[25]  Arun Agrawal,et al.  Trade-offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commons , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[26]  Jean Paul Metzger,et al.  A landscape triage approach: combining spatial and temporal dynamics to prioritize restoration and conservation , 2015 .

[27]  P. Balvanera,et al.  Trade-offs in ecosystem services and varying stakeholder preferences: evaluating conflicts, obstacles, and opportunities , 2015 .

[28]  Wiktor L. Adamowicz,et al.  Tradeoffs between forestry resource and conservation values under alternate policy regimes: A spatial analysis of the western Canadian boreal plains , 2010 .

[29]  G. E. Dixon.  Essential FVS: A User's Guide to the Forest Vegetation Simulator , 2007 .

[30]  Nicole M. Vaillant,et al.  Overview and example application of the Landscape Treatment Designer , 2012 .

[31]  J. Franklin,et al.  Historical structure and composition of ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests in south-central Oregon , 2013 .

[32]  Carrie V. Kappel,et al.  Ecosystem service tradeoff analysis reveals the value of marine spatial planning for multiple ocean uses , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[33]  Susan I. Stewart,et al.  The wildland-urban interface in the United States based on 125 million building locations. , 2005, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[34]  Janet L. Ohmann,et al.  Predictive mapping of forest composition and structure with direct gradient analysis and nearest- neighbor imputation in coastal Oregon, U.S.A. , 2002 .

[35]  Interactions between societal goals and restoration of dry forest landscapes in western North America , 2014, Landscape Ecology.

[36]  James D. Dickinson,et al.  Integration of Northern spotted owl habitat and fuels treatments in the eastern Cascades, Washington, USA , 2010 .

[37]  R. Deal,et al.  Bundling of ecosystem services to increase forestland value and enhance sustainable forest management , 2012 .

[38]  Andrew J. McMahan,et al.  Restoration of fire in managed forests: a model to prioritize landscapes and analyze tradeoffs , 2013 .

[39]  T. Sisk,et al.  Real versus perceived conflicts between restoration of ponderosa pine forests and conservation of the Mexican spotted owl , 2008 .

[40]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Understanding relationships among multiple ecosystem services. , 2009, Ecology letters.

[41]  Stephen Polasky,et al.  Ecosystem service trade-offs across global contexts and scales , 2015 .

[42]  M. M. Moore,et al.  REFERENCE CONDITIONS AND ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION: A SOUTHWESTERN PONDEROSA PINE PERSPECTIVE , 1999 .

[43]  Michael James Howes,et al.  Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review of the Literature , 2013 .

[44]  Lisa M. Holsinger,et al.  Simulating historical landscape dynamics using the landscape fire succession model LANDSUM version 4.0 , 2006 .

[45]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  A simulation study of thinning and fuel treatments on a wildland–urban interface in eastern Oregon, USA , 2007 .

[46]  David N. Barton,et al.  Ecosystem Services and Opportunity Costs Shift Spatial Priorities for Conserving Forest Biodiversity , 2014, PloS one.

[47]  Cody R. Evers,et al.  Assessing the impacts of federal forest planning on wildfire risk mitigation in the Pacific Northwest, USA , 2016 .

[48]  Marissa F. McBride,et al.  Optimal restoration: Accounting for space, time and uncertainty , 2011 .

[49]  Peter Z. Fulé,et al.  Landscape-scale changes in canopy fuels and potential fire behaviour following ponderosa pine restoration treatments , 2008 .

[50]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  Wildfire exposure and fuel management on western US national forests. , 2014, Journal of environmental management.