FRESC scientists investigate whole-system processes and relationships across space and time in order to advance understanding of natural, managed, and disturbed ecosystems. This includes research, monitoring, remote sensing, modeling, and synthesis to describe the patterns of change across landscapes and the biological and physical processes that generate them.
Natural resource managers are increasingly required to understand human impacts on ecosystems across landscapes. This requires studies of biological, physical, and human patterns and processes across relatively large geographic areas and over long periods of time. Monitoring landscape change and modeling the effects of various management scenarios are useful for developing a comprehensive picture of how ecosystems have changed over time and what will they be like in the future.
We use remote sensing, geographical information systems, and spatially explicit modeling techniques combined with intensive and extensive field sampling approaches to understand past change and future trajectories given various scenarios of land management and climate change. Our research focuses on the effects of management (e.g., harvest, thinning, and fuels management) and landscape disturbance (e.g., fire, insects, wind, and climate change) on forest composition and structure in the Pacific Northwest, and on integrated landscape monitoring to guide regional planning and conservation.
Featured Projects
- Modeling Responses of Forest Ecosystems to Alternative Landscape Management Scenarios in Western Oregon
- Developing Modeling Capabilities and Evaluating Effects of Fuel and Timber Management on Forest Landscapes: Landscape Scenario Analysis Project (Phase II - Applegate Watershed)
- Puget Sound Integrated Landscape Monitoring (PSILM) - Lessons Learned, Conceptual Framework, and Analysis Methods
- Landscape Patterns of Forest Disturbance and Climate Change on the Olympic Peninsula
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Aquatic & Landscape Ecology Research Team (FRESC)
Click this link to see Additional Publications from this project.
Conceptualizing ecological responses to dam removal: If you remove it, what's to come?
Dam removal: Listening in
Landscape context and the biophysical response of rivers to dam removal in the United States
Status and trends of dam removal research in the United States
Dendritic network models: Improving isoscapes and quantifying influence of landscape and in-stream processes on strontium isotopes in rivers
The interactive effects of climate change, riparian management, and a non-native predators on stream-rearing salmon
- Overview
FRESC scientists investigate whole-system processes and relationships across space and time in order to advance understanding of natural, managed, and disturbed ecosystems. This includes research, monitoring, remote sensing, modeling, and synthesis to describe the patterns of change across landscapes and the biological and physical processes that generate them.
Natural resource managers are increasingly required to understand human impacts on ecosystems across landscapes. This requires studies of biological, physical, and human patterns and processes across relatively large geographic areas and over long periods of time. Monitoring landscape change and modeling the effects of various management scenarios are useful for developing a comprehensive picture of how ecosystems have changed over time and what will they be like in the future.
We use remote sensing, geographical information systems, and spatially explicit modeling techniques combined with intensive and extensive field sampling approaches to understand past change and future trajectories given various scenarios of land management and climate change. Our research focuses on the effects of management (e.g., harvest, thinning, and fuels management) and landscape disturbance (e.g., fire, insects, wind, and climate change) on forest composition and structure in the Pacific Northwest, and on integrated landscape monitoring to guide regional planning and conservation.
Featured Projects
- Modeling Responses of Forest Ecosystems to Alternative Landscape Management Scenarios in Western Oregon
- Developing Modeling Capabilities and Evaluating Effects of Fuel and Timber Management on Forest Landscapes: Landscape Scenario Analysis Project (Phase II - Applegate Watershed)
- Puget Sound Integrated Landscape Monitoring (PSILM) - Lessons Learned, Conceptual Framework, and Analysis Methods
- Landscape Patterns of Forest Disturbance and Climate Change on the Olympic Peninsula
- Science
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Aquatic & Landscape Ecology Research Team (FRESC)
Fresh waters are one of the most valuable and threatened resources worldwide. They supply critical services to society and harbor many of the world’s most imperiled species. We conduct research and provide technical assistance to address challenges to fresh waters. Our research focuses on ecological processes in freshwater and terrestrial systems and the effects of those processes on landscape... - Publications
Click this link to see Additional Publications from this project.
Conceptualizing ecological responses to dam removal: If you remove it, what's to come?
One of the desired outcomes of dam decommissioning and removal is the recovery of aquatic and riparian ecosystems. To investigate this common objective, we synthesized information from empirical studies and ecological theory into conceptual models that depict key physical and biological links driving ecological responses to removing dams. We define models for three distinct spatial domains: upstreAuthorsJ. Ryan Bellmore, George R. Pess, Jeffrey J. Duda, Jim E. O'Connor, Amy E. East, Melissa M. Foley, Andrew C. Wilcox, Jon J. Major, Patrick B. Shafroth, Sarah A. Morley, Christopher S. Magirl, Chauncey W. Anderson, James E. Evans, Christian E. Torgersen, Laura S. CraigByEcosystems Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Species Management Research Program, Arizona Water Science Center, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, Oregon Water Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Western Fisheries Research CenterDam removal: Listening in
Dam removal is widely used as an approach for river restoration in the United States. The increase in dam removals—particularly large dams—and associated dam-removal studies over the last few decades motivated a working group at the USGS John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis to review and synthesize available studies of dam removals and their findings. Based on dam removals thus farAuthorsMelissa M. Foley, James Bellmore, James E. O'Connor, Jeffrey J. Duda, Amy E. East, Gordon G. Grant, Chauncey W. Anderson, Jennifer A. Bountry, Mathias J. Collins, Patrick J. Connolly, Laura S. Craig, James E. Evans, Samantha Greene, Francis J. Magilligan, Christopher S. Magirl, Jon J. Major, George R. Pess, Timothy J. Randle, Patrick B. Shafroth, Christian E. Torgersen, Desiree D. Tullos, Andrew C. WilcoxByEcosystems Mission Area, Natural Hazards Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Volcano Hazards Program, Volcano Science Center, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, Oregon Water Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Western Fisheries Research Center, Columbia River Research Laboratory (CRRL)Landscape context and the biophysical response of rivers to dam removal in the United States
Dams have been a fundamental part of the U.S. national agenda over the past two hundred years. Recently, however, dam removal has emerged as a strategy for addressing aging, obsolete infrastructure and more than 1,100 dams have been removed since the 1970s. However, only 130 of these removals had any ecological or geomorphic assessments, and fewer than half of those included before- and after-remoAuthorsMelissa M. Foley, Francis J. Magilligan, Christian E. Torgersen, Jon J. Major, Chauncey W. Anderson, Patrick J. Connolly, Daniel J. Wieferich, Patrick B. Shafroth, James E. Evans, Dana M. Infante, Laura CraigByEcosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) Program, Science Synthesis, Analysis and Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, Oregon Water Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science CenterStatus and trends of dam removal research in the United States
Aging infrastructure coupled with growing interest in river restoration has driven a dramatic increase in the practice of dam removal. With this increase, there has been a proliferation of studies that assess the physical and ecological responses of rivers to these removals. As more dams are considered for removal, scientific information from these dam-removal studies will increasingly be called uAuthorsJames Bellmore, Jeffrey J. Duda, Laura Craig, Samantha L. Greene, Christian E. Torgersen, Mathias J. Collins, Katherine VittumDendritic network models: Improving isoscapes and quantifying influence of landscape and in-stream processes on strontium isotopes in rivers
A critical challenge for the Earth sciences is to trace the transport and flux of matter within and among aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric systems. Robust descriptions of isotopic patterns across space and time, called “isoscapes,” form the basis of a rapidly growing and wide-ranging body of research aimed at quantifying connectivity within and among Earth's systems. However, isoscapes of rivAuthorsSean R. Brennan, Christian E. Torgersen, Jeff P. Hollenbeck, Diego P. Fernandez, Carrie K Jensen, Daniel E. SchindlerThe interactive effects of climate change, riparian management, and a non-native predators on stream-rearing salmon
Predicting how climate change is likely to interact with myriad other stressors that threaten species of conservation concern is an essential challenge in aquatic ecosystems. This study provides a framework to accomplish this task in salmon-bearing streams of the northwestern United States, where land-use related reductions in riparian shading have caused changes in stream thermal regimes, and addAuthorsDavid J. Lawrence, Ben Stewart-Koster, Julian D. Olden, Aaron S. Ruesch, Christian E. Torgersen, Joshua J. Lawler, Don P. Butcher, Julia K. Crown