Improving Science Synthesis for Forest Managers

A Forest Sustainability Capstone Project

Abstract: To manage forests to be sustainable and protected against threats, land managers need to keep up to date with information spanning a wide range of topics related to forest health and forest threats. Science synthesis can help consolidate the information delivered to land managers, but there is no good source for curated, location-specific, ecosystem-specific science synthesis available. We propose a novel approach for delivering current research to land managers and other stakeholders that incorporates science synthesis and infographics into a platform that is searchable, location-targeted, and clear about uncertainty. This platform will allow for better adaptive forest management because it will reduce the time and uncertainty involved in the literature review process.

The number of scientific papers published each year is getting out of hand. For people who rely on scientific findings to direct how they manage resources sustainably, this means that they aren’t able to stay as informed about the scientific literature as they once were. For example, the graph below shows that in the past few years almost a thousand papers each are published annually in the fields of fire and snow research within the western United States.

It’s important for forest managers in the western US to stay informed about both of these fields and more to manage their respective forests sustainably. So how can forest managers keep up with the latest research?

Science synthesis is one possible solution. We need a platform that managers can reference to quickly find the information they need to make informed decisions, with a way to dive deeper into specific topics of interest. To solve this problem I, along with Jon Hart, Anne-Marie Parkinson, Alison Hacker and Dr. Naomi Tague, set off to create a plan for a platform that could synthesize information in a useful way for land managers of all kinds. Our proposal combines conceptual models, overview text, information coding, links to details and links to publications. It is also expandable, and able to be modified as new research is published.

We used Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks as a case study for our science synthesis system because its large size and wide variety of ecosystem types make it representative of other areas across the US, and it is subject to common threats such as wildfire and climate change. In addition, the parks’ iconic sequoia trees and high visitation rate create unique management objectives and threats beyond those found in other forests, resulting in an ideal focus area for our science synthesis system. Finally, California’s forests have been well studied, so a significant amount of scientific information already exists, which is critical for our science synthesis system to be useful and effective.

The platform works like this: the user starts at a home page that has buttons that lead to pages that contain information about forest health topics, like water quality or carbon storage, as well as threats to the forest, like drought and pollution.

From the topic pages, the user can navigate to other related topic pages, or to pages that have information about how two different topics relate to each other. They can also navigate to other pages to find information about how these topics are valued or measured, as well as citations leading to the research papers that the information came from.