Within a cumulative effects (CE) framework, we know that we need to keep our minds working at several temporal and spatial scales. This is not a comfortable task, nor is it easy. We are practiced at dealing with short time scales (our biweekly paycheck) and defined spaces (our desk, our backyard). We are less practiced and comfortable with long time scales - like a 30-year mortgage (time) for an obscene sum of money - or scales that shift from our backyard to the continent. The expanded time and space scales demand flawless record keeping and organizational memory, two attributes of which most of us are not usually accused.
On the research side of the Forest Service, there is now a demand for a similar type of multiple space and time focus. Things have changed a lot in the last few years, and the Stations are suffering a culture shock that is likely to worsen as the changes progress. Under the old style of research, projects were established to deal with reasonably well-defined problems. The problem area lasted from 5 to 20 years, and a researcher could count on having the time to actually do field research. We could instrument a watershed, get five years of baseline data, do some manipulations, and then watch how the system responded for 5-10 years.
We now seem to be in the Marshall McLuhan/Andy Warhol style of research - we all get 15 minutes of fame, and no research problem lasts longer than 3 years. I used to laugh about how the EPA had the Pollutant of the Month system of priority setting - this month it's Alar, and next month it's asbestos - and all work had to be restricted to this month's pollutant. Well, FS Research is going that way due to the way Congress funds programs. Right now CEs are hot, but within a few years I'll bet Monitoring will eclipse CE, and Biodiversity will probably take over a few years later. FS Research is responding by phasing out the old "project" structure and establishing broad "program areas", and theory has it that scientists will shift research emphases as funding waxes and wanes within these programs.
FS Research has had some success in solving natural resource problems that could be isolated and studied until they yielded their secrets. That technique is the basis of the scientific method. Under the new research paradigm, one needs to produce answers about complex, interrelated phenomena without even taking them apart - and the answer has to appear in 3 years or less!
The PSW Station has a new CE/Inland Fisheries project in Berkeley. The project has a fish biologist, a statistician, and hydrologists. Aquatic ecologists, geologists, and others will be called in as needed. This structure encourages all disciplines to interact and perform research at the time and space scales that are important to the other members of the team. The project has long-term work (two Experimental Forests and a high-elevation staffed laboratory) but also provides NFS consultation on short-term projects. The overall research mission is split into components in a flow chart, and rough estimates of the linkages and "rate equations" are made so that the "model" at least begins to function in an analytical framework reasonably quickly. We then try to isolate the really sensitive linkages or black holes in the knowledge base, and get studies going in these areas. Some answers may be available by twisting the long-term work slightly.
So what can Research offer the folks out on the front lines in terms of CE tools?? I can offer a few suggestions of my own, but remember that researchers are a feisty group with a wide range of opinions, so others may disagree. Most will agree that there is no comprehensive tool for evaluating or predicting CEs. The R-5 CWE methodology is a dispersion-based risk evaluation technique - great to help a manager make a decision, but not for predicting water quality effects. When pressed to recommend "things to do", I do have some favorites: temperature, residual pool volume, stream substrate size classes including fines, embeddedness, gradient, and discharge. Nutrients and macroinvertebrates are incredibly informative as well, and can be done a few times a year in a few places at reasonable cost. Think of these as baseline data that will help you be ready for the analytical tools that will be produced. They will also help you when interest groups demand you show results of monitoring programs. Strictly speaking, monitoring means more than baseline data, but baseline data collection is a great start.
When you embark on data collection, do it electronically (No charts!) so the data can be downloaded to a PC or the DG, and then plot them immediately to see if all is well. Keep electronic "Comments" files along with the data files so that you and your successors will have a clue as to what was going on. Use dataloggers that are as simple as possible, and stick to one brand within your Forest area so that there are spares and an accumulated knowledge base of how to make them go. Talk to your nearby friendly researcher and try to tie into his or her data collection efforts and gear so you get more for your efforts.
Research into CEs and New Perspectives will yield more results soon, so hang in there, and we'll get this bumblebee airborne yet!
Bruce may be reached at (415) 486-3456
