Abstract

Disturbances, both natural and anthropogenic, are critical determinants of forest structure, function, and distribution. The vulnerability of forests to potential changes in disturbance rates remains largely unknown. Here, we developed a framework for quantifying and mapping the vulnerability of forests to changes in disturbance rates. By comparing recent estimates of observed forest disturbance rates over a sample of contiguous US forests to modeled rates of disturbance resulting in forest loss, a novel index of vulnerability, Disturbance Distance, was produced. Sample results indicate that 20% of current US forestland could be lost if disturbance rates were to double, with southwestern forests showing highest vulnerability. Under a future climate scenario, the majority of US forests showed capabilities of withstanding higher rates of disturbance then under the current climate scenario, which may buffer some impacts of intensified forest disturbance.

Details

Title
Disturbance Distance: quantifying forests' vulnerability to disturbance under current and future conditions
Author
Dolan, Katelyn A 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Hurtt, George C 2 ; Flanagan, Steve A 2 ; Fisk, Justin P 3 ; Sahajpal, Ritvik 2 ; Huang, Chengquan 2 ; Yannik Le Page 4 ; Dubayah, Ralph 2 ; Masek, Jeffrey G 5 

 Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States of America; Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. 
 Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States of America 
 Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States of America; Applied Geosolutions, 87 Packers Falls Road, Durham, NH, United States of America 
 Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States of America; Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisbon, Portugal 
 Biospheric Sciences Laboratory NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States of America 
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Nov 2017
Publisher
IOP Publishing
e-ISSN
17489326
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2549203588
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.