Mark D. MacKenzie, August 11, 1999

Private Forest Landowners and GIS: An Exercise in Technology Transfer

As management goals for the US National Forest System are becoming more diverse, appropriate forest management by non-industrial private forest landowners is becoming even more important. GIS has a great potential in helping to develop and implement forest management plans. This paper presents an attempt to develop an interactive, web-based GIS using ArcView and ArcView IMS software to help individuals answer the question - Do I need a GIS?

INTRODUCTION

As you prepare to read this paper, I ask you to answer the following questions:
  1. How much of your State is in forests?
  2. What is the distribution of forest land ownership in your State (i.e., how much is under Federal or State ownership, private industrial ownership, or private non-industrial ownership)?

Alabama's Forest Resource

In Alabama, approximately 22 million acres, or roughly 67% of the land surface, are forested. Alabama contains the third largest commercial forest in the US. These forests are classified into four major forest types: 1) Pine (33.8%), 2) Pine-Hardwood mixture (20.5%), 3) Bottomland Hardwood (10.5%) and Upland Hardwood (35.2%) (FPDC nd-a). The forest product industry is the number one manufacturing industry in the State (FPDC nd-b). The vast majority (73%) of forest land in Alabama is owned by non-industrial private landowners (Figure 1)(PFMT 1999a).

 Due to recent changes in the management of public lands in the US, the South is experiencing, and will continue to experience, increased pressure to supply the nation and the world with wood fiber and products. Not only are our forests being used to meet the demands for forest products, there is also an increasing demand for recreation, water quality protection, endangered and threatened species protection, etc. Because of the importance of forestry in Alabama and the US, there is as need for the private non-industrial private forest landowner to manage their resource as responsibly as possible (PFMT 1999a).

The Private Forest Management Team

To assist the non-industrial private forest landowner, individuals within the Auburn University School of Forestry, in cooperation with various State and private organizations have created the Private Forest Management Team (PFMT). The stated objectives of the PFMT are:
  1. Identify what motivates landowners to manage forest land for the variety of potential benefits. Capitalize on these motivations to create enthusiasm among landowners in embracing forest resource management principles.
  2. Identify and communicate the personal, social and economic benefits that can be derived from the active management of forest land.
  3. Identify and communicate the range of management objectives that can be employed to derive these benefits from the forest.
  4. Identify and communicate the management techniques that can be used to achieve these desired objectives.
  5. Identify, create and communicate the technical information needed to select and properly execute these forest management techniques in a manner that maintains or enhances the productivity of the land for future generations.

    6. (PFMT 1999a)
One of the major tools for disseminating information to the appropriate community has been the development of the PFMT web page (http://www.pfmt.org).

 As one looks at the PFMT objectives listed above, it becomes apparent that GIS may have a role to play in helping the PFMT. Specifically, GIS can be used to address items 4 and 5. The role of GIS becomes even more apparent if one looks at the following forest management planning activities recognized by the PFMT:

  1. Identify specific management goals and objectives.
  2. Inventory forest resources and property.
  3. Evaluate management objective alternatives and tradeoffs.
  4. Prepare final management plan.
  5. Implement the plan.

    6. (PFMT 1999b)
It is not difficult to see that GIS would be a useful tool in addressing items 2-5 of the above forest management planning activities.

Objectives

The primary objective of the research presented is this paper was to develop a mechanism to address the question - Do I need a GIS? This is a question I am often asked. I was hoping to develop an interactive, web based GIS demonstration to let an individual answer the question. This demonstration was intended to:
  1. Allow interactive display of various themes.
  2. Allow interactive query.
  3. Allow links to other html and .pdf documents.
  4. Highlight (i.e., advertise) the Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest.

METHODS

Study Site

The 390 acre Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest (Figure 2) located in south Auburn, AL was selected as the study site for this research. Prior to 1956 the majority of the site was in row crops or pasture. Since that time, the site was planted in pine or allowed to regenerate naturally to pine or bottomland and upland hardwoods. In 1977, the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service and the Lee County Forestry Planning Committee in cooperation with the landowner developed a forest management demonstration at the site. Auburn University was bequeathed the property in 1983 and it has since been managed by the School of Forestry.

 The current management objective is multiple use with an emphasis on forest management and environmental education. Today, the site hosts a number of demonstrations including different harvesting and regeneration combinations (Figure 3); stand maintenance through thinning, prescribed burning, and salvaging (Figure 4); fire control through roads and fire lanes (Figure 5); environmental protection through streamside management zones (SMZ's) (Figure 6); and different wildlife management techniques.

 The soils of the site are identified as Pacolet (a fine, kaolinitic, thermic Typic Kanhapludult) or Toccoa (a coarse-loamy, mixed, active, nonacid, thermic Typic Udifluvent) soil types with low to moderate slopes and are moderately productive for forests (McNutt 1981). The site consists of a number of different stand types including pine sawtimber, hardwood sawtimber, planted loblolly and longleaf pine, natural regeneration, and SMZ's.
 
 

GIS Development

ArcView 3.1 running under Windows 98 was selected as the software with which the GIS would be developed. It was felt that the ArcView Internet Map Server (IMS) 1.0a software extension would provide the appropriate web based capabilities for ArcView to met the project objectives. The GIS facilities of the School of Forestry and the Alabama Land Resource Information Center (http://www.ag.auburn.edu/aaes/alrichome/) were used to generate the following themes:
  1. Site Boundary
  2. Streams
  3. Roads and Trails
  4. Soils (with some soil attribute information derived from the soil survey [McNutt 1981])
  5. Stands (with cruise data in the attribute data base)
A project containing two major views, soils and stands, was created using a combination of these themes. Internet serving of the resultant project was attempted using the PFMT's NT server running the Microsoft Internet Information Server software. This resulted in the server becoming unstable and the project was eventually served using my PC running the Microsoft Personal Web Server for Windows 98.
 
 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

ArcView IMS was capable of serving the project over the web. Using ArcView IMS, I was able to display the two views (soils [Figure 7] and stands [Figure 8]), interactively select themes (Figure 9), and interactively view attribute data. ArcView IMS, as delivered by Esri, did not allow for interactive spatial query across the web. For example, trying to develop a theme of the co-occurrence of Pine sawtimber on the Pacolet soil type or the percent occurrence of stand types within a 20 yard buffer from a road was not possible. In fairness to Esri, it was never claimed that ArcView IMS had such capabilities. I was in error in assuming it did.

 ArcView and ArcView IMS were found to be a user friendly environment in which to develop and display views. I was able to serve views in which a user could interactively select themes for display. Manipulation of the html code produced by the ArcView IMS extension has allowed me to link other html and .pdf documents to my views and/or surrounding frames. I experienced problems in trying to get ArcView IMS to keep from "crashing" a server running Microsoft Internet Information Server software on an NT server. I am still trying to resolve this issue. Finally, I was disappointed to learn that I was not able to develop spatial queries using ArcView IMS. Discussions at the 1999 Esri User Conference suggest that there may be a set of tools to develop such queries. Such tools would extend the utility of the ArcView IMS product and help me in trying to get others to answer primary question of concern that I attempted to address - Do I need a GIS?
 
 

CONCLUSIONS

The combination of ArcView and ArcView IMS allowed me to meet some of my objectives. Specifically, I was able to develop a method to interactively display various themes within a view, create links to other html and .pdf documents, and highlight the Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest. I was not able to develop a mechanism whereby users could perform interactive spatial queries themes. The inability to do this made it impossible for me to meet the primary goal of this project which was to have individuals answer the question - Do I need a GIS? One way around this shortcoming would be to prepare a series of "canned" spatial queries that would guide the user through a typical query and present a series of views that show the output of such queries.

 Recognizing that I may have chosen the wrong set of tools to address my objectives, I plan to investigate the utility of other Esri IMS products in addressing these objectives. Having developed the basic framework of the GIS, I plan to develop links to other relevant documents within the view frames (i.e., links to photographs and other site data, metadata, and sources of additional information using ArcView IMS. For example, when users click on a longleaf pine regeneration stand type, there could be a link to the Longleaf Alliance (http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/la/). When the ArcView IMS software is installed in such a way that it no longer crashes the server, the results of the research will be accessible through the PFMT site (http://www.pfmt.org/).
 
 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their contributions to this project: 1) John Beck, Manager of the Alabama Land Resources Center; 2) Tim Bottenfield, Director of Information Systems, Auburn University School of Forestry; 3) Roxanna Dean, Information Technology Specialist and webmaster, Private Forestry Management Team; and 4) Louis (Pat) Smith, formally a graduate student in the School of Forestry, for his initial spatial data base creation.
 
 

REFERENCES

[FPDC] Forest Products Development Center. No date - a. Alabama's forest resource [Online]. Available: http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/fpdc/alforest.html [1999, August 11].

 [FPDC] Forest Products Development Center. No date - b. Alabama's Forest Products Industry [Online]. Available: http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/fpdc/alforind.html [1999, August 11].

 McNutt, R.B. 1981. Soil survey of Lee County, Alabama. [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service.

 [PFMT] Private Forest Management Team. 1999a. Introduction [Online]. Available: http://www.pfmt.org/ [1999, August 11].

 [PFMT] Private Forest Management Team. 1999b. Forest management planning [Online]. Available: http://www.pfmt.org/planning/ [1999, August 11].

Mark D. MacKenzie
Assistant Professor of Forest Ecology
School of Forestry
Auburn University, AL 36849-5418
Phone (334) 844-1014 Fax (334) 844-1084
mackenzi@forestry.auburn.edu