Boundary-Spanning Collective Action Assuages Wildfire Risk in the West

Summary: Boundary-spanning collective action assuages wildfire risk, according to a TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension webinar Feb. 25, 2020.

TREE Fund Learn at Lunch webinar Tuesday, Feb. 25, contextualized the SCOPA model with wildfire risk management: SoRock Fire Science @SRfirescience, via Twitter Feb. 26, 2020

Boundary-spanning collective action appears second, Feb. 25, as Boundary-Spanning for Collective Action: Managing Wildfire Risk in the West, in TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension 2020 Learn at Lunch webinars.

Emily Jane Davis, Oregon State University Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Corvallis, bears as learning objectives recognizing and applying boundary-spanning collective action types and functions. Boundary-spanning collective action convenes diverse organizational cultures, incentives, mandates, missions, practices, processes and structures and covers more acreage timely despite capacity, money, ownership and technology-constrained timelines. Boundary-spanning attributes demonstrate the SCOPA model of driver/enabler-friendly settings; common conceptual meanings and goals; gap-bridging, resource-transferring objects; connection-creating and sustaining people/organizations; and activities driving collective/related tasks.

Large, recent fires in large landscapes express the boundary-spanning collective action of multi-agency collaborations, partnerships and responses despite variable ownership patterns, socio-ecological contexts and spatial footprints.

Tony Cheng, Colorado State University Department of Forest & Rangeland Stewardship Professor with an Extension appointment, features case studies managing large, severe wildfires for water supplies.

The Director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute in Fort Collins gauges focus-event settings as generating new or reworked assessment, mapping, monitoring, operational delineation, prescriptive activities. Focus-event settings, such as large, water-needy wildfires harvest such boundary-spanning concepts as preventative mitigation investments, responsibilities and risks; and boundary-spanning objects as shared commitments and vision. Boundary-spanning objects and people/organizations include water protection and wildfire mitigation/suppression collaborative agreements, charters, memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and plans; and fireshed coalitions and water protection partnerships.

Fatigue; gravitational pull of home organization incentives, missions, performance, priorities and targets; individual non-institutionalized risk-takers; and inter-organizational competition for limited grant funding jeopardize boundary-spanning collective action.

The 8,500-square-mile (22,014.9-square-kilometer) setting of Garfield County and Iron County in southwestern Utah kindles the third segment on boundary-spanning collective action, Case Studies on Co-Managing Suppression.

Darren McAvoy, Utah State University Extension Assistant Professor of Forestry in Logan, lauds Color Country Interagency Fire Center dialogue-friendly, relationship-friendly monthly meetings and diverse agency-experienced personnel. Off-season, pre-season planning for co-managing suppression mitigates the facilitating and limiting factors of low turnover whereby new-hire and old-hire procedures must merge for boundary-spanning collective action. Different suppression mandates within agencies in the mixed jurisdictions of southwestern Utah number among the limiting factors to boundary-spanning collective action of shared costs and risks.

Established statutory rules and organizational turnover and, for institutional memories, off-season, pre-season shared artifacts, details, dialogues, maps and memos respectively obstruct and occasion boundary-spanning collective action.

The second Davis segment, as the hour-long webinar's finale, presents positive outcomes with reduced liability in non-profit, rancher-engaged, rapid-reacting, safe-responding, volunteer Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs).

Bureau of Land Management and Harney County Wildfire Collaborative suppression management training, mitigation mapping, strategic fuel-break analysis, written agreements and monitoring plans quicken boundary-spanning collective action. Oregon statutes recognize Burns Interagency Fire Zone, Cooperative Extension, High Desert Partnership, RFPA settings; megafire concepts; objectified Bureau-Collaborative MoUs; High Desert Partnership people/organizations; and landscape, project risk-monitoring activities. Webinar viewers selected from large settings; restoration concepts; objectified agreements, codes, MoUs; coordinating, liaising parleyers; and coordinated, outcome-oriented, shared activities people/organizations as boundary-spanning initiators and sustainers.

The Davis segment transmits the SCOPA model for collective action that tackles wildfire risk in the West and various wildfire risk arboriculture and forestry contexts worldwide.

In TREE Fund Learn at Lunch's Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, webinar, Darren McAvoy, Utah State University Extension Assistant Professor of Forestry in Logan, Utah, cited Color Country Interagency Fire Center (CCIFC) for finessing boundary-spanning collective action via such co-managing suppression measures as off-season, pre-season planning; CCIFC is an interagency dispatch center involving cooperation among the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the State of Utah Forestry. Fire and State Lands: via GACC (Geographic Area Coordination Centers) NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center)

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

TREE Fund Learn at Lunch webinar Tuesday, Feb. 25, contextualized the SCOPA model with wildfire risk management: SoRock Fire Science @SRfirescience, via Twitter Feb. 26, 2020, @ https://twitter.com/SRfirescience/status/1232705731238952960

In TREE Fund Learn at Lunch's Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, webinar, Darren McAvoy, Utah State University Extension Assistant Professor of Forestry in Logan, Utah, cited Color Country Interagency Fire Center (CCIFC) for finessing boundary-spanning collective action via such co-managing suppression measures as off-season, pre-season planning; CCIFC is an interagency dispatch center involving cooperation among the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the State of Utah Forestry. Fire and State Lands: via GACC (Geographic Area Coordination Centers) NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) @ https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/dispatch/ut-cdc/cdcmain.html

For further information:

Abrams, Jesse; Katherine Wollstein; & Emily Jane Davis. June 2018. "State Lines, Fire Lines, and Lines of Authority: Rangeland Fire Management and Bottom-Up Cooperative Federalism." Land Use Policy 75: 252-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.038
Available @ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264837718300103

Davis, Emily Jane; Lee K. Cerveny; Donald R. Ulrich; & Meagan L. Nuss. 2018. "Making and Breaking Trust in Forest Collaborative Groups." Humboldt Journal of Social Relations Special Issue: The American West After the Timber Wars 1(40): 211-231.
Available @ https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=hjsr

Davis, Emily Jane; Tony Cheng; and Darren McAvoy. 25 February 2020. "Boundary-Spanning for Collective Action: Managing Wildfire Risk in the West." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2020. PA-20-541.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCAudaUiJCY&feature=youtu.be

Kratsch, Heidi. 3 December 2019. "Practical Aspects of Tree Selection for High Desert Climates." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Marriner, Derdriu. 25 January 2020. "Soil Assessment for Urban Trees Aims, Assesses, Acts, Analyzes." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/01/soil-assessment-for-urban-trees-aims.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 28 December 2019. "High Desert Tree Selection Attacks Drought, Pollution, Salt and Toxins." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/high-desert-tree-selection-attacks.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 December 2019. "Urban Trees Advocate for Human and Urban Health and Vice Versa." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/urban-trees-advocate-for-human-and.html

Scharenbroch, Bryant C. 14 January 2020. "Soil Assessment for Urban Trees." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019 > PP-20-003.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

SoRock Fire Science @SRfirescience. 26 February 2020. "Check out this webinar from yesterday - Boundary-Spanning for Collective Action: Managing Wildfire Risk in the West. https://youtu.be/ZCAudaUiJCY. Features the new SCOPA Model 'Settings, Concepts, Objects, People, Activities' for organizing risk management!!" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/SRfirescience/status/1232705731238952960

White, E.M.; K. Lindberg; E.J. Davis; & T.A. Spies. 2019. "Use of Science and Modeling by Practitioners in Landscape-Scale Management Decisions." Journal of Forestry 117(3): 267-279. https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvz007
Available @ https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2019_white001.pdf

Wolf, Kathleen. 19 November 2019. "Health Benefits of City Trees: Research Evidence and Economic Values." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Soil Assessment for Urban Trees Aims, Assesses, Acts, Analyzes

Summary: Soil Assessment for Urban Trees appears first, Jan. 14, in the TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension Learn at Lunch webinars for 2020.

Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch emphasizes the importance of quality soil assessments for urban tree health in his TREE Fund webinar, Soil Assessment for Urban Trees, presented Jan. 14, 2020: TREE Fund @TREE_Fund, via Twitter Jan. 14, 2020

Soil Assessment for Urban Trees by Bryant Scharenbroch Jan. 14, 2020, assumes first place in the 2020 Learn at Lunch webinar series under the auspices of TREE Fund and Utah State University.

The Assistant Professor of Soil Science at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Research Fellow at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, begins with four steps. The Scharenbroch webinar, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, considers aiming for urban tree diversity, health, soil management; assessing biologically, chemically, physically; acting; analyzing. Determining why, when, where, how to assess draws in site disinformation and misinformation; growing seasons nutrient-wise; year-round texture-wise; subsurface and surface root zones; soil sampling tools.

Quality assessments entail soil function, such as stormwater-abating infiltration and contaminant-abating nutrients; and function-related, management-sensitive, user-accessible, database-conducive indicators for environmental and human health, productivity and protection.

Soil assessment for urban trees fits biological, chemical, physical soil quality index indicators of organic matter; pH, salts; structure and texture into the site quality index.

Soil management for urban trees gauges dripline and extended-dripline 6 to 8-inch (15.24 to 20.32-centimeter-) deep root-friendly and artifact, contaminant, fill-degraded 15.75-inch (40-centimeter-) deep urban soils. The International Society of Arboriculture Best Management Practices 2014 guidances herald shovels and bucket and Dutch augers for respectively deep, messy and cleaner, deeper soil sampling. They include push probes, high-pressure air tools and 3.28-foot by 3.28-foot by 3.28-foot (1-meter by 1-meter by 1-meter) soil pits for respective surface-fertility, diagnostic-amending, investigative sampling.

The ball ribbon dimple test of clayey, loamy, sandy and silty soils judges as gritty, smooth or sticky-textured relative proportions of individual nutrient-holding, water-holding particle separates.

Bulk density samplers, core penetrometers and submersion tests kindle knowledge of the structural arrangements, shapes and strengths of air and moisture pore spaces and soil aggregates.

Soil assessment for urban trees looks at ideal structure as granular soils with pore spaces between rounded, small aggregates for aerated, non-compacted, well-drained high-level biological activity. Soil electrical conductivity probes measure acidic, neutral or alkaline soil pH levels and electrical current transmissions respectively slowed or speeded by low or high soil salinity. Munsell Color Books, Nikon Chroma Meters and Nix Pro Color Sensors note organic matter, biological indicator of any carbon-based, non-inorganic-based, soil materials once or still living.

Color apps, books, meters and sensors offer soil assessment for urban trees specific hues and occasion lower soil values for higher organic contents and vice versa.

Soil assessment for urban trees proceeds practically, scientifically, site-specifically from the interactive impact of the biological indicators upon chemical and physical indicators and upon site recovery.

The Scharenbroch webinar queues up urban planting sites in Glen Ellyn and Lisle, Illinois, and in Moscow, Idaho, for compaction, organic-matter depth, pH-limited soil quality indices. The site quality index relegates tough and weak trees to plantings ranked respectively lower and higher by soil quality index biological, chemical, physical and overall ratings. Both indices suggest alkaline-loving trees since alkaline soils sabotage compost and sulfur respectively organically and chemically sending urban sites' predominantly 6 to 7 pH levels downward.

The Scharenbroch webinar trends timely with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2019 report of soils degrading 10 to 100 times faster than forming.

Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch, The Morton Arboretum's urban soil scientist, explains the importance of soil health for urban tree health in his Jan. 14, 2020, TREE Fund webinar, "Soil Assessment for Urban Trees": TREE Fund @TREE_Fund, via Twitter Jan. 9, 2020

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch emphasizes the importance of quality soil assessments for urban tree health in his TREE Fund webinar, Soil Assessment for Urban Trees, presented Jan. 14, 2020: TREE Fund @TREE_Fund, via Twitter Jan. 14, 2020, @ https://twitter.com/TREE_Fund/status/1217105045994573824

Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch, The Morton Arboretum's urban soil scientist, explains the importance of soil health for urban tree health in his Jan. 14, 2020, TREE Fund webinar, "Soil Assessment for Urban Trees": TREE Fund @TREE_Fund, via Twitter Jan. 9, 2020, @ https://twitter.com/TREE_Fund/status/1215270748773933056

For further information:

"Chapter 4: Land Degradation." In: P.R. Shukla; J. Skea; E. Calvo Buendia; V. Masson-Delmotte; H.-O. Pörtner; D. C. Roberts; P. Zhai; R. Slade; S. Connors; R. van Diemen; M. Ferrat; E. Haughey; S. Luz; S. Neogi; M. Pathak; J. Petzold; J. Portugal Pereira; P. Vyas; E. Huntley; K. Kissick; M. Belkacemi; and J. Malley. (Eds.). 7 August 2019. Climate Change and Land: An IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems. Geneva, Switzerland: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Available @ https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/2e.-Chapter-4_FINAL.pdf

Ghosh, Subhadip; Bryant C. Scharenbroch; Daniel Burcham; Lai Fern Ow; S. Shenbagavalli; and S. Mahimairaja. June 2016. "Influence of Soil Properties on Street Tree Attributes in Singapore." Urban Ecosystems 19(2): 949-967.
Available via SpringerLink @ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11252-016-0530-8

Hobson, Jeremy. 20 September 2019. "U.N. Report Links Soil Degradation to Climate Change." WBUR > Here & Now > Covering Climate Now.
Available @ https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/09/20/soil-degradation-climate-change

Kramer, Eric; Stephanie Hsia; Robert Uhlig; Bryant Scharenbroch; and Kelby Fite. 1 December 2015. "Below and Beyond: Long-Term Performance of Urban Planting Systems." Landscape Architecture Frontiers 3(6): 46-61.
Available via Gale Academic Onefile @ https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA459714804&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=20955405&p=AONE&sw=w

Kratsch, Heidi. 3 December 2019. "Practical Aspects of Tree Selection for High Desert Climates." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Marriner, Derdriu. 28 December 2019. "High Desert Tree Selection Attacks Drought, Pollution, Salt and Toxins." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/high-desert-tree-selection-attacks.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 December 2019. "Urban Trees Advocate for Human and Urban Health and Vice Versa." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/urban-trees-advocate-for-human-and.html

Scharenbroch, Bryant C. 14 January 2020. "Soil Assessment for Urban Trees." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019 > PP-20-003.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Scharenbroch, Bryant. September 2009. "A Meta-Analysis of Studies Published in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry Relating to Organic Materials and Impacts on Soil, Tree, and Environmental Qualities." Journal of Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 35(5): 221-231.
Available via ResearchGate @ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bryant_Scharenbroch/publication/255642668_A_Meta-analysis_of_Studies_Published_in_Arboriculture_Urban_Forestry_Relating_to_Organic_Materials_and_Impacts_on_Soil_Tree_and_Environmental_Properties/links/53d138290cf2a7fbb2e634f0/A-Meta-analysis-of-Studies-Published-in-Arboriculture-Urban-Forestry-Relating-to-Organic-Materials-and-Impacts-on-Soil-Tree-and-Environmental-Properties.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; and Michelle Catania. September 2012. "Soil Quality Attributes as Indicators of Urban Tree Performance." Journal of Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 38(5): 214-228.
Available via SemanticScholar @ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/04af/2a10731a79485bebb3635b42c4cb95abb306.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; and Douglas P. Johnston. 1 February 2011. "A Microcosm Study of the Common Night Crawler Earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) and Physical, Chemical and Biological Properties of a Designed Urban Soil." Urban Ecosystems 14(1): 119-134.
Available via ResearchGate @ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bryant_Scharenbroch/publication/226675164_A_microcosm_study_of_the_common_night_crawler_earthworm_Lumbricus_terrestris_and_physical_chemical_and_biological_properties_of_a_designed_urban_soil/links/02e7e52d43a972188b000000.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; and John E. Lloyd. 1 July 2006. "Particulate Organic Matter and Soil Nitrogen Availability in Urban Landscapes." Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 32(4): 180-191.
Available via ResearchGate @ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bryant_Scharenbroch/publication/254440262_Particulate_Organic_Matter_and_Soil_Nitrogen_Availability_in_Urban_Landscapes/links/5519425e0cf2d241f355f428/Particulate-Organic-Matter-and-Soil-Nitrogen-Availability-in-Urban-Landscapes.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; and Gary W. Watson. November 2014. "Wood Chips and Compost Improve Soil Quality and Increase Growth of Acer rubrum and Betula nigra in Compacted Urban Soil." Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 40(6): 319-331.
Available via TREE Fund @ https://treefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ScharenbrochWatson_2014_auf.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; Margaret B. Bialecki; and Robert T. Fahey. 16 November 2017. "Distribution and Factors Controlling Soil Organic Carbon in the Chicago Region, Illinois, USA." Soil Science Society of America Journal 81(6): 1436-1449.
Available via Acsess Digital Library @ https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/81/6/1436

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; David Carter; Margaret Bialecki; Robert Fahey; Luke Scheberl; Michelle Catania; Lara A. Roman; Nina Bassuk; Richard W. Harper; Les Werner; Alan Siewert; Stephanie Miller; Lucy Hutyra; and Steve Raciti. 6 September 2017. "A Rapid Urban Site Index for Assessing the Quality of Street Tree Planting Sites." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 27: 279-286.
Available via United States Department of Agriculture @ https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2017/nrs_2017_scharenbroch_001.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; Kelby Fite; Eric Kramer; and Robert Uhlig. July/August 2018. "Pedogenic Processes and Urban Tree Health in Engineered Urban Soils in Boston, Massachusetts, USA." Soil Science 183(4): 159-167.
Available via Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. @ https://journals.lww.com/soilsci/Abstract/2018/07000/Pedogenic_Processes_and_Urban_Tree_Health_in.6.aspx

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; John E. Lloyd; and Jodi L. Johnson-Maynard. 1 August 2005. "Distinguishing Urban Soils with Physical, Chemical, and Biological Properties." Pedobiologia 49(4): 283-296.
Available via TREE Fund @ https://www.treefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/scharenbroch_etal_2005_pedobiologia.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; Elsa N. Meza; Michelle Catania; and Kelby Fite. September-October 2013. "Biochar and Biosolids Increase Tree Growth and Improve Soil Quality for Urban Landscapes." Journal of Environmental Quality 42(5): 1372-1385.
Available via TREE Fund @ https://treefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Journal-Article.pdf

Scharenbroch, Bryant C.; Edgar Thomas Smiley; and Wes Kocher. 2014. Soil Management for Urban Trees. Champaign-Urbana IL: International Society of Arboriculture.

Scheberl, Luke; Bryant C. Scharenbroch; Les P. Werner; Jacob R. Prater; and Kelby L. Fite. February 2019. "Evaluation of Soil pH and Soil Moisture with Different Field Sensors: Case Study Urban Soil." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 38: 267-279.
Available via ScienceDirect @ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S161886671830116X

TREE Fund @TREE_Fund. 14 January 2020. "Happy #treefundtuesday! Today is @MortonArbSoil aka Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch’s webinar on assessing the soil of urban trees. We would like to take a moment this morning to thank him for all of his research on soil to help our urban trees live their best lives possible!!" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/TREE_Fund/status/1217105045994573824

TREE Fund @TREE_Fund. 9 January 2020. "We ask a lot from urban trees, yet we often provide them with  only the minimum requirements to exist. What can be done to help them? Find out by registering for Dr. Bryant Scharenbroch’s Jan. 14 webinar, 'Soil Assessment for Urban Trees' #treefund." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/TREE_Fund/status/1215270748773933056

Wolf, Kathleen. 19 November 2019. "Health Benefits of City Trees: Research Evidence and Economic Values." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ http://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index