Monday, October 29, 2012

Forest Practices Unhappiness

Last winter a paper  (Abstract Wittaker and McShane (2012)) suggested that landslide screening tools developed by the DNR were reasonably good at predicting potential slope problems. We also suggested that these tools could be better utilized than they have been. We also made a real effort to recognize that the screening tools available could be and will likely be improved (this is particularly true as LiDAR becomes more utilized). I've encountered some folks that were not happy with that paper. But then I have encountered a few folks that have been unhappy about this:

Slope failures on forest land in southwest Washington
Red dots are my own inventory of slide sites

The paper has given me some perspective on the difficulty of changing policy so messes like the one pictured above are better understood and managed. It has also driven home how sensitive agencies can allow themselves to get.

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