Current Research

Current Research

Implementing Hazardous Fuels Reduction from a Human Perspective

The project's purpose is to identify how hazardous fuels reduction can be done in a way that maximizes the environmental, social, and economic benefits of fuels reduction projects on federal forestlands and in forest communities.  The project asks 4 main questions:

  1. What are the ways in which the Forest Service is implementing hazardous fuels reduction (e.g.,     treatment types such as burning or mechanical treatments, and "work mechanisms" such as timber sales, stewardship contracts, and service contracts)?
  2. What are the things that drive agency decisions about how and where this work gets done?
  3. What are the social, economic, and ecological outcomes of different hazardous fuels reduction      strategies?
  4. How can we best address the internal agency, and external community, barriers to successful fire hazard reduction programs?

This project is a collaboration between EWP faculty and social scientists at the US Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. 

The Contribution of Forest and Watershed Restoration to Jobs Creation and Local Economies

Forest and watershed restoration is an increasingly important part of state and federal resource management topping $100 million dollars per year in the state of Oregon alone.  Understanding the contribution of forest and watershed restoration to local economies and job creation is critical to placing forest and watershed restoration on par with other public investments and maintaining supportive working rural communities.  The project asks 2 main questions:

  1. What are the local and statewide economic and employment multipliers for various forest and watershed restoration activities?
  2. What are the structure, need, and composition of the forest and watershed restoration economy?

This project is a collaboration between EWP faculty, economists at the US Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.

Economic Effects of Large Wildfires in 2008

This project will help land managers and policy makers better understand, anticipate, and plan for the local economic effects of wildfires.  Our goal is to provide information to decision-makers that will assist them in making management and policy decisions that support local economies by minimizing the negative economic effects of wildfire. 

We posit that wildfires may affect local economies through two pathways: direct negative effects from reduced economic activity (e.g., resource management, tourism, and supporting industries) and direct positive effects from economic activity generated through fire suppression contracting.  Wildfires may also result in future local economic benefits from recovery and economic development efforts such as biomass utilization from fire hazard reduction projects.  However, local economies only experience direct positive effects if fire suppression contracting is awarded locally and future benefits are only possible if the fire stimulates, rather than stops, economic development efforts associated with recovery and forest restoration.  This project asks 3 main questions:

  1. What are the effects of large wildland fires on local economies?  
  2. How does fire suppression contracting mediate those effects?
  3. How do large wildland fires affect local economic development efforts, especially those related to biomass utilization associated with fire hazard reduction? 

This project is funded by the Joint Fire Sciences Program and is a collaboration between EWP Faculty, economists at the US Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station, and social scientists at the US Forest Service’s Northern Research Station.

Dry Forest Investment Zone

EWP faculty are working with colleagues from regional intermediaries and local community-based natural resource management organizations to develop an assessment and monitoring strategy for the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities dry forest investment zone of Northern California and Central and Eastern Oregon.  EWP faculty, with our partners at Sustainable Northwest, Wallowa Resources, The Watershed Resource and Training Center, and Resource Innovations, will collaboratively design a an assessment and monitoring strategy to measure the impacts of investments in the Zone. The ultimate goals of the project are to:

  1. To build community and business capacity to achieve forest and economic resilience;
  2. To create multiple value streams from land management;
  3. To develop integrated biomass utilization and renewable energy; and
  4. To document and disseminate lessons in the DFIZ, regionally, and nationally.

Social Issues of Biomass Utilization

This project is an effort to identify common social issues that arise with forest biomass utilization projects in the United States.  We examine biomass utilization opportunities from small diameter round wood, to both electricity and heat energy development, to niche products to understand the social and community trade-offs associated with each utilization type. A preliminary review of existing peer-reviewed and gray literature found that primary social concerns vary markedly from one region to the next, but that some common recommendations can be made, such as:

  1. Ensure that local benefits such as job creation outweigh possible negative effects such as increased localized pollution
  2. Engage local communities in the decision making process in order to build trust
  3. Develop projects on a scale that best fits individual communities and regions.

This project is funded by the US Forest Service’s Northern Research Station.