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Evaluating the Impact of Abrupt Changes in Forest Policy and Management Practices on Landscape Dynamics: Analysis of a Landsat Image Time Series in the Atlantic Northern Forest

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  • Kasey R Legaard
  • Steven A Sader
  • Erin M Simons-Legaard

Abstract

Sustainable forest management is based on functional relationships between management actions, landscape conditions, and forest values. Changes in management practices make it fundamentally more difficult to study these relationships because the impacts of current practices are difficult to disentangle from the persistent influences of past practices. Within the Atlantic Northern Forest of Maine, U.S.A., forest policy and management practices changed abruptly in the early 1990s. During the 1970s-1980s, a severe insect outbreak stimulated salvage clearcutting of large contiguous tracts of spruce-fir forest. Following clearcut regulation in 1991, management practices shifted abruptly to near complete dependence on partial harvesting. Using a time series of Landsat satellite imagery (1973-2010) we assessed cumulative landscape change caused by these very different management regimes. We modeled predominant temporal patterns of harvesting and segmented a large study area into groups of landscape units with similar harvest histories. Time series of landscape composition and configuration metrics averaged within groups revealed differences in landscape dynamics caused by differences in management history. In some groups (24% of landscape units), salvage caused rapid loss and subdivision of intact mature forest. Persistent landscape change was created by large salvage clearcuts (often averaging > 100 ha) and conversion of spruce-fir to deciduous and mixed forest. In groups that were little affected by salvage (56% of landscape units), contemporary partial harvesting caused loss and subdivision of intact mature forest at even greater rates. Patch shape complexity and edge density reached high levels even where cumulative harvest area was relatively low. Contemporary practices introduced more numerous and much smaller patches of stand-replacing disturbance (typically averaging

Suggested Citation

  • Kasey R Legaard & Steven A Sader & Erin M Simons-Legaard, 2015. "Evaluating the Impact of Abrupt Changes in Forest Policy and Management Practices on Landscape Dynamics: Analysis of a Landsat Image Time Series in the Atlantic Northern Forest," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0130428
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130428
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cubbage, Frederick W. & Newman, David H., 2006. "Forest policy reformed: A United States perspective," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 261-273, December.
    2. Ellefson, Paul V. & Kilgore, Michael A. & Granskog, James E., 2007. "Government regulation of forestry practices on private forest land in the United States: An assessment of state government responsibilities and program performance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(6), pages 620-632, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Simons-Legaard, Erin & Legaard, Kasey & Weiskittel, Aaron, 2021. "Projecting complex interactions between forest harvest and succession in the northern Acadian Forest Region," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 456(C).
    2. Gbenga Abayomi Afuye & Ahmed Mukalazi Kalumba & Israel Ropo Orimoloye, 2021. "Characterisation of Vegetation Response to Climate Change: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-23, June.
    3. Zhao, Jianheng & Daigneault, Adam & Weiskittel, Aaron, 2020. "Forest landowner harvest decisions in a new era of conservation stewardship and changing markets in Maine, USA," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

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