Detailed Description of Research Projects

Validating, scaling, and parameterizing a forest regrowth model for the Amazon region using aircraft and spaceborne sensors and GIS

Funded by NASA, under the LBA program led by the Brazil. Co-investigators include Bill Salas (Applied Geosolutions), Diogenes Alves (INPE), Dan Zarin (University of Florida), and Jiaguo Qi (Michigan State University). In this project, we are testing and elaborating a model of the rates of forest regrowth on abandoned agricultural lands in the Amazon basin. The project involves extensive field work, coupled with intensive analysis of remotely sensed data.

Understanding mechanistic controls on forest regrowth in the eastern Amazon

Projeto MANFLORA, led by Dan Zarin (University of Florida and Faculdade de Ciencias Agriculturas do Para) and funded by the Mellon Foundation, involves an intensive experiment manipulating water and nutrient availability in regrowth forests at the FCAP field station. I have worked on biomass sampling and the development of allometric equations for this site. Bill McDowell (UNH) is the lead scientist from UNH on the project.

Efficient methods of assessing coarse woody debris in forest ecosystems

This work is funded by the U.S.D.A. National Research Initiatives program. Co-investigators and other collaborators in this effort include Jeff Gove, John Brissette, Harry Valentine, and Mike Williams of the U.S. Forest Service. We have been developing field-testing methods for assessing snags and downed coarse woody material in forests, with an initial focus on New Hampshire and Maine.

Coarse woody debris in Northeastern forests

This work is funded by U.S. Forest Service Cooperative Research with Linda Heath of the U.S.F.S. Members of my lab have been assisting in characterization of the regional distribution of coarse woody material, and its contribution to the carbon budget of U.S. forests. Kim Babbitt at U.N.H. is also a partner in this project.

Fire management options to control woody invasive plants in the northeast and mid-Atlantic

This project, funded by the Interagency Fire Program and led by Alison Dibble (U.S.F.S.) and Bill Patterson (University of Massachusetts), is addressing the potential for prescribed fire in slowing the spread of invasive exotic species.

Evaluating the impact of emergency ice storm funds on nonindustrial private forest owner stewardship

This project, conducted in collaboration with U.N.H. Cooperative Extension, focused on the role of emergency funding of the Stewardship Incentive Program and the ways it modified landowner response to the 1998 ice storm. A final report on this project is in preparation.

Measuring stocking and structure in New Hampshire forests

This project, funded by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, has evolved over the last few years. Early efforts focused on understanding how leaf area and growth relate (or don't!) to conventional ideas about assessment of forest stocking. Current work under this project is emphasizing basic sampling questions, as well as the possible utility of some new remote sensing approaches in forest inventory. Remote sensing tools are being explored in collaboration with Bill Salas (Applied Geosolutions), and Fay Rubin and David Justice (U.N.H. Complex Systems Research Center).

New sampling techniques and approaches to analysis in tropical forests

This area of work arose through discussions with Douglas Sheil at CIFOR in Indonesia. We have collaborated successfully on papers exploring different sampling and statistical issues and I look forward to continuing that collaboration.

Imprecise probabilities and their application in forestry decisions

This is the research I do on my own time when nobody is looking... because it is fun! Imprecise probabilities and related methods have emerged as possible alternatives to traditional approaches for decisionmaking under uncertainty. There are serious intellectual and practical questions to wrestle with in this area.