Brodie A FEMC2007

Assessing Habitat Conditions for Dispersing Owls Across Space and Time: Combining Expert Opinion with Empirical Data to Assess Alternatives in Washington State's Forest Land Planning Process

Angus Brodie, Washington State Department of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 47016, Olympia, WA, 98504, USA, angus.brodie@dnr.wa.gov
Sean N. Gordon, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station SDO CAP, 6th Floor, P.O. Box 3890, Portland, OR, 97208, USA, sgordon@fs.fed.us
Heather McPherson, Washington State Department of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 47016, Olympia, WA, 98504, USA, heather.mcpherson@dnr.wa.gov
Lowell Dickson,,Washington State Department of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 47016, Olympia, WA, 98504, USA, lowell.dickson@dnr.wa.gov

The Washington Department of Natural Resources has embarked on a new effort to improve the quantification of environmental impacts through the use of a fuzzy logic-based assessment tool developed by the U.S. Forest Service (the Ecosystem Management Decision Support system or EMDS). EMDS is an extension to the ArcGIS software that facilitates the building of complex, spatial evaluation models based on either available data, expert opinion, or both. Projections of forest management alternatives are conducted using Woodstock/Stanley scheduling software and yield tables from Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) growth model. These results are then fed into the EMDS model for evaluation. The present model is being built to assess northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) dispersal habitat, under various alternative forest management regimes for DNR’s new tactical-scale forest plans. Since relatively little is known about the habitat requirements for dispersing owls (in contrast to nesting owls), experts were convened to define habitat indicators, based on their collective available knowledge. Results of the EMDS stand-level model provide habitat quality scores for input into a management block-scale (20,000 - 40,000 ha) analyses, to get an overall assessment of dispersal habitat quality, configuration and connectivity. Promising approaches to this landscape assessment include graph theory and cost surface analyses. Once the landscape approach is completed, these habitat quantity/quality scores will be combined for multiple points in time under each alternative, to give an overall assessment of functional dispersal habitat when comparing alternatives.