NASA awards multi-institutional team $1M grant to inform US forest management

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A research team led by a Penn State ecologist has received a $1 million grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to integrate satellite data into predictive modeling to anticipate change in recruitment — the process by which new trees emerge — within forests across the eastern United States.

In partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Bureau of Forests, the researchers will use information generated by NASA Earth-monitoring satellites to help the bureau make decisions related to seeding and planting, coping with the migration of tree species, and habitat and wildlife management. Tong Qiu, assistant professor in the Penn State Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, will lead the project.

According to DCNR, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forests manages 2.2 million acres of woodlands that represent one of the largest expanses of public wildland in the eastern United States. These forests support a $5 billion forest-products industry and protect more than 25,000 miles of streams used for drinking water and recreation.

The bureau’s mission is multifaceted, Qiu noted. It includes protecting forest ecosystems from threats such as wildfire, pests and disease, sustainably managing timber to meet industry demands while providing wildlife habitat, supporting recreational activity and reducing disturbance risks. In addition, the bureau must restore and maintain biodiversity to promote forest resilience.

Several challenges need to be addressed to accomplish these goals, Qiu explained, and one major concern is how to ensure the successful and timely forest regeneration following harvests and other disturbances such as pest outbreaks and wildfire.

“An acknowledged lack of regeneration is further compounded by the unprecedented demand for forest products from both the commercial and recreational sectors,” he said, noting that forests are not growing new trees quickly enough to keep up with consumption. “Whether or not forests can occupy new habitats at a pace needed to meet these demands depends on the poorly understood processes of seed production and seedling recruitment.”

Qiu’s lab in the College of Agricultural Sciences focuses on quantifying the regeneration potential of global forests, including the variations in seed production and seedling recruits related to climate, habitat, species traits and the wildlife consumers reliant on them. Recently, Qiu led an international team of scientists on a study published in Nature Plants that, for the first time, documented and analyzed the intricate balance between seed defense and dispersal by forest trees at a global scale. 

Satellite data of tree abundance will help researchers predict future tree-recruitment rates and resulting seed supply in forests across the eastern U.S. It will also allow them to identify the species that are likely to be limited by inadequate recruitment, Qiu said. The researchers will also establish seed traps and conduct crop counts on DCNR’s plots to help calibrate their models.

“This information will provide a cost-effective way for DCNR foresters to plant seedlings or saplings of selective species in areas where natural regeneration is limited,” he said. “The remotely sensed habitat also will help DCNR identify areas that would benefit from tree plantings, such as degraded riparian buffers or large forested areas impacted by pest mortality.”

The USDA Forest Service estimates that over one-third of the rivers and streams in Pennsylvania have had their riparian areas degraded or altered. 

Modeling enhanced by remotely sensed data will provide critical information for identifying areas in need of habitat restoration or management following wildfire, insect outbreaks or human activities, Qiu explained, helping DCNR utilize its limited resources and budget more efficiently. The resulting decision-support models will help biologists from the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program — a multi-agency partnership focused on providing data to inform land-use and guide conservation — narrow their on-the-ground search time for certain plant communities, reducing costs related to fieldwork.

Pennsylvania’s forest lands contain more hardwood growing stock than any other state, supporting a huge forest-products industry and employing nearly 100,000 people. Models informed by satellite data products, Qiu pointed out, will support critical sustainable timber control by helping managers plan the timing and intensity of timber harvesting, ensuring that it does not negatively impact regeneration capacities.

“Furthermore, our predictive models can generate insights into future timber revenues given different climate warming and management scenarios,” he said. “To assess the effectiveness of the tool, DCNR will track the frequency of the technology’s usage in timber sale proposals.”

Finally, deer management in public forests could be improved by satellite-provided data. Qiu explained that deer are a key factor in the diminishment of forest regeneration in Pennsylvania, but the cost of installing deer fencing is too high, at $15 per foot, to be a reasonable blanket solution.

“Predictions of deer-browsing impacts will guide limited budget allocations to prioritize areas in need of deer fencing and help DCNR submit proposals to focus supplemental hunting permits to reduce deer pressure on seedling survival,” he said.

Qiu will collaborate with James Clark at Duke University and Marc McDill, associate professor of forest management, in Penn State’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, the other two co-principal investigators on this grant.