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Density Management and Riparian Buffer Studies
An economic recovery project led by Deanna Olson of the PNW Research Station
and Oregon State University’s Klaus Puettmann has employed a forestry
technician, a postdoctoral forestry researcher, and a Ph.D. student to help
investigate the effects and interactions of climate patterns and alternative
forest management practices on forest, riparian, and stream habitat conditions
in headwater drainages.
This project is part of a larger long-term collaborative
research initiative, the Density Management and Riparian Buffer Studies of
Western Oregon, an effort
that involves the PNW Research Station, the Forest Service Pacific Northwest
Region, the USDI Bureau of Land Management, and Oregon State University.
The goal of the initiative is to examine the efficacy of alternative silvicultural
manipulations (including different riparian buffer widths and thinning densities)
of early-successional forests in accelerating the development of late-successional
forest structure. The forest treatments are being tested as useful project-level
tools to achieve larger forest ecosystem management goals.
The studies are
entering a new round of thinning treatments, providing an optimal time to
synthesize and integrate discrete study segments. It is also
for developing new directions from interim findings and changing conditions
that potentially affect the study and its representative forest landscape.
Inclusion of climate metrics and assessment of climate variation (as variables
that potentially affect both upland and riparian vegetation growth and
aquatic-riparian habitat conditions for sensitive fauna) is an important new
this set of studies. The infusion of economic recovery funds has allowed
of the scope of the research to include the effect of climatic variation
on water availability for riparian forest growth. It has also made it possible
for Puettmann’s extensive work in upland forests to be integrated into
the research framework. Recent results from the research have been presented
at various scientific meetings, and several journal publications are in preparation.