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How Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) modeling quantifies co-benefits and tradeoffs in Community Forest management
Citation:
Mckane, Bob, J. Halama, P. Pettus, B. Barnhart, A. Brookes, K. Djang, G. Blair, J. Hall, J. Kane, P. Swedeen, AND L. Benson. How Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) modeling quantifies co-benefits and tradeoffs in Community Forest management. To be Presented at Northwest Community Forest Forum, Astoria, OR, May 10 - 11, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Community‐owned forests are an innovative governance model that enables forestland to be managed for both conservation and economic development values. Members of the Coalition have a shared vision that community forests can play an important role in establishing sustainable rural working lands that supply an array of ecosystem services – clean drinking water, flood protection, fuel, fiber, jobs, and recreation – for surrounding rural communities and more distant urban centers. Bob McKane’s (EPA-NHEERL-ORD-WED) keynote address to the 2018 Northwest Community Forest Forum will describe a multi-year collaborative effort to demonstrate and transfer the VELMA ecohydrological model and associated tools to communities, tribes and the states of Washington and Oregon for their use in formulating watershed restoration plans. McKane is leading a team of EPA Western Ecology Division researchers under EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program and the Safe and Sustainable Waters Research Program. Their research to develop VELMA aims to place user-friendly planning tools in the hands of local, state and federal environmental decision makers. Their collaboration with community forest groups is one example to assist such groups in quantifying how different decision options will affect tradeoffs in ecosystem services vital to human health and well-being.
Description:
The Northwest Community Forest Coalition invited EPA-WED Research Scientist Bob McKane to present the Keynote Address for the 2018 Northwest Community Forest Forum on May 9‐11 in Astoria, OR. His address will describe "How Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) modeling quantifies co‐benefits and tradeoffs in Community Forest management". He will also participate in the Forum's opening panel discussion and in breakout sessions during Forum. The Northwest Community Forest Coalition is a network of practitioners supporting the emergence, development, and management of community forests. This 4th biennial Community Forest Forum and Field Tour will bring together over 100 community‐based organizations, land trusts, private landowners, local government officials, and others to learn and network. Community‐owned forests are an innovative governance model that enables forestland to be managed for both conservation and economic development values. Members of the Coalition have a shared vision that community forests can play an important role in establishing sustainable rural working lands that supply an array of ecosystem services – clean drinking water, fuel, fiber, jobs, and recreation – for surrounding rural communities and more distant urban centers. VELMA is an eco‐hydrology model designed to help users assess green infrastructure options for controlling the fate and transport of water, nutrients, and toxics across multiple spatial and temporal scales for different ecoregions and present and future climates. It’s part of SHC Project 2.61, Community–based Ecosystem Goods and Services. Dr. McKane has worked previously with the Nisqually Community Forest team on developing salmon‐friendly timber management plans with VELMA.