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KEY INFORMATION NEEDS AND QUESTIONS
WORKSHOP ON PREDICTING SEDIMENT FROM
FOREST ROAD SYSTEMS IN THE SOUTH
Dr. George Ice, NCASI
Decision-Making Information Needs
- What resources are at risk and what risk is acceptable?
- What are appropriate performance measures for road restoration—tons
of sediment reduced or biological response?
- What is the cost of alternative erosion control practices?
- How do model predictions compare to measured sediment
in streams (validation testing)?
- What fraction of road erosion reaches the stream under
what different conditions, how is material routed
through the stream system, and what are the effects in different
reaches of the stream?
- How can we incorporate uncertainty in analysis?
- How can we account for legacy sediments in streams near
roads?
- Do we really know what percent of erosion related to
forest management is caused by forest roads?
Model Needs
- Why are there so many different models? Do they each serve
different purposes?
- Models should be physically based.
- Road sediment models need to get the hydrology right
first in order to predict sediment runoff.
- Most road erosion models focus on the road and not the
receiving water; they should be receiving-water oriented.
- Most models focus only on the sources of sediment; they
should also account for sinks.
- Do we need event-based models so that we can calibrate
the models, or long-term average models that
provide managers with a overview of road impacts?
- There is a need to integrate other land-use impacts into
sediment models used for forestry so that managers
can make decisions about impacts in a proper context.
- Because there is so much variation in road performance,
there needs to be replication in the experiments
used to create the data that models are based upon.
- Long-term data sets for sediment from roads are needed
to test models.
Road Management Issues
- Old road practices and designs are still being used for
forest roads.
- Implementation of known Best Management Practices for
forest roads is often lacking.
- Maintenance of forest roads is often inadequate to minimize
erosion.
- There needs to be incentives or rewards to make road-erosion
control an attractive idea.
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