Relationships between common forest metrics and realized impacts of Hurricane Katrina on forest resources in Mississippi

نویسندگان

  • Sonja N. Oswalt
  • Christopher M. Oswalt
چکیده

This paper compares and contrasts hurricane-related damage recorded across the Mississippi landscape in the 2 years following Katrina with initial damage assessments based on modeled parameters by the USDA Forest Service. Logistic and multiple regressions are used to evaluate the influence of stand characteristics on tree damage probability. Specifically, this paper addresses four primary questions related to post-hurricane damage: (1) do inventory data substantiate damage zone estimates made using remotely sensed and climate data following Hurricane Katrina; (2) were softwoods or hardwoods more susceptible to hurricane damage and does that susceptibility change as distance from landfall increases; (3) what are the primary stand-level factors influencing vulnerability to damage, based on observed damage and measured stand characteristics, and; (4) is tree-level damage related to tree species, and do damage types (bole, branch, lean, or windthrow) differ by species? We were able to accept the hypothesis that damage differed among the developed zones, and to confirm the acceptability of the figures initially generated. However, we were not able to accept the hypothesis that softwoods experienced more damage than hardwoods. Our data showed a marked increase in damage to hardwood species, except in the first zone of impact. Additionally, the likelihood of hardwood damage increased with increasing distance from the zone of impact. However, species group was confounded with the other predictor variables in many cases, making it difficult to separate the effects of each variable. Published by Elsevier B.V.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Species Diversity of Trees and Forest Floor Plants in Oriental beech Forest Types of Shastkalate Educational and Research Forest, Gorgan)

Trees are the most important biological elements of forest ecosystems. The variability of the tree species composition inhabiting in the Oriental beech forest, not only forms different forest types but also has a remarkable impact on the species diversity of forest floor plants, due to the existence of trees in the overstory layer. In this research, forest types of an an Oriental beech were ide...

متن کامل

Ethics and Participation in Natural Resources Protection

Background: Public participation in decisions regarding natural resources is the easiest way to ‎preserve these resources. It seems that having human of conservation ethics of natural resources, ‎has affect on their participation in the preservation of natural resources. This survey research was ‎done to investigate the relationship between conservation ethics of natural resources and ‎particip...

متن کامل

Assessment of Pre- and Post- Katrina Fuel Conditions as a Component of Fire Potential Modeling for Southern Mississippi

concentrated on creating a linear additive GIS model designed to determine fire potential in southeastern United States. Although numerous fire potential models have been developed (Andrews and Queen 2001, Bonazountas et al. 2005, Hernandez-Leal et al. 2006), our model is specifically designed to address distinctive conditions of southern Mississippi. Most of the existing literature on fire mod...

متن کامل

Impacts of Forest-Based Activities on Woodland Characteristics

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of forest-based activities on the conditions of the Ganaveh woodland in the southern Zagros, Iran, and to suggest strategies for improving the implementation of forest resource management plans. Woodland inventory data was gathered in 2003, accompanied with data from interviews in 2008, were used in this study. The results show that there...

متن کامل

Hurricane Katrina and mental health: a research note on Mississippi Gulf Coast residents.

Katrina was the most devastating and deadliest hurricane in recent U.S. history. The storm was particularly destructive for residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast where sustained winds of 135 mph and a storm surge of 32 feet literally obliterated the built and modified environments. Limited research exists on the chronic (32 months) mental health impacts of survivors in this geographical area....

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2008