The Southern Appalachian Assessment, scheduled for completion by the end of this year, will provide resource managers the best data base they have ever had for making decisions. This was the message from Forrest Carpenter, policy co-chair of the assessment, at the SAMAB Spring Planning Meeting.
Eleven agencies in seven states are working on the assessment. One objective is to provide a report to the public on the health of the region's natural resources and the social implications arising from this.
Four teams are assessing the health of terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric ecosystems, and the social, cultural, and economic consequences. Carpenter noted the "impressive professionalism" of the 156 people who make up these teams. Many more people are involved, feeding information to the team leaders.
The Southern Appalachian Assessment is a joint effort of SAMAB's member agencies. Much information already has been gathered, and various team members gave short reports on their activities. The following summarizes their remarks:
Karl Hermann: A massive amount of information from the assessment is already in hand and is being fed into a Geographic Information Systems data base. Some data already are available to assessment team leaders. When completed, the data base will be housed at the University of Tennessee and available to computer users on Internet. Data themes include: Public land ownership, hydrography, transportation, topography, soils, geology, demographics, land cover, ecological classifications, forest pest and disease occurrence, pollution point sources, forest stand inventories, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) monitoring, Natural Resource Inventory (NRI) monitoring, timber supply and demand, recreation sites, historic cultural sites, climate, air quality, mines, fire occurrence, distinctive landscapes, and climatic disturbances. Many of these themes have multiple scales of data.
Marisue Hilliard: The terrestrial team has a sub-team working on forest health. It is made up of representatives from six agencies. They will determine current trends, the effects of air pollution, the results of past management practices, and the effects of fires on the forests.
Steve Oak: The terrestrial team is conducting a literature survey of forest problems in past years - for example, the chestnut blight - and how these relate to the forest ecosystem now, particularly to the decline of oak species.
Brian Spears: Spears explained how data for the plant and animal assessment are being gathered and from what sources these data are derived.
Glen Gaines: The status of threatened and endangered species is being assessed. The team will try to determine what habitat conditions are best for maintaining existing populations. The focus is on 27 specie groups.
Jack Holcomb: Part of the aquatic team's work is like a physician looking at the bloodstream. He examines the nutrients and their impacts on the body as a whole. The aquatic team is looking at impacts on the aquatic stream from such sources as hydrologic stress, pollution, and habitat conditions.
Jim Harrison: The water quality team is examining standards set by the various states and how these can be integrated on a regional scale. Selected streams are being examined for key indicators. One product of this study will be a map defining the condition of the region's aquatic resource.
Ken Cordell: The social, cultural, and economic team is assessing the "human component" of the overall assessment. It is surveying the values people put on the natural and physical resources of the region, and the demands they place upon the ecosystem. Four sub-regions of Appalachia are being surveyed by means of focus-group meetings.
Gerald Helton: The social, cultural, and economic assessment will try to answer questions such as, How have social patterns changed in the past two decades? How have these changes affected resource management? How, in turn, have resource management strategies affected the people of the region? By means of a telephone survey, this sub-team will try to determine, among other things, the importance people place on recreation, their attitude toward current approaches to ecosystem management, and the effects that ecosystem management has on people's lifestyles and livelihood.
John Peine: The assessment is looking at the way "community capital" is expended on such things as education, school dropout rates, etc. The dynamics of population growth are being examined.
Larry Hayden: The recreation sub-team is gauging the supply and demand for recreation. One thing learned so far is that strip development has a tremendous impact on recreation. The team plans to produce a regional recreation atlas.
John Romanowski: Wilderness areas and roadless tracts are being catalogued. Fourteen public meetings and open houses have been held since February to gather information on these and other recreation topics.
Bill Jackson: The atmospheric team is examining factors affecting visibility in Appalachia. At some sites, photographs are being taken three times a day to characterized conditions. Illustrating the scope and complexity of the study, ozone data must be gathered from 11 states.
Stephanie Neal: Public involvement has been an important part of the Southern Appalachian Assessment from the start. The public involvement team plays a support role for the rest of the teams, providing input and getting feedback on the public's concerns. A newsletter is mailed periodically to 3,000 people.
Jane Singleton: The technical writing team will report key findings of the assessment. There will be a lengthy general report, and a brief summary.
No costs are involved, so no budget was set.
Sustainable Development John Peine, Chairman
The Executive Committee voted to support the Townsend project with technical assistance to come from the SAMAB Cooperative's members, and will consider any future request for funds.
It voted to ask the Sustainable Development Committee to develop criteria for its proposed awards program for consideration at the next Executive Committee meeting. Some small costs would be involved, but no budget was set.
Environmental Education Gene Cox, Chairman
The Executive Committee approved a budget for this committee of $15,000 over two years.
Cultural Resources Kirk Cordell, Chairman
Report will be delayed.
Public Affairs Committee Terry Seyden, Chairman
The Executive Committee approved a budget of $10,000 for this committee.
Resources Management Larry Luckett, Chairman
This committee's report will be delayed.
The SAMAB Executive Committee's next meeting will be July 11, 1995, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, starting at 9:30 a.m. The meeting will be held in TVA's Signal Place Building, Room S-301, the "Emory River Room." Members of the standing committees and other interested ones are encouraged to attend.
SAMAB's standing committees, reorganized and ready for action, hit the ground running at the Spring Planning Meeting in Asheville April 27-28. Executive Director Hubert Hinote and Executive Committee Co-Chair Charles Van Sickle gave the revitalized committees their marching orders.
Hinote reminded the committees that they were formed for the purpose of identifying issues and developing cooperative strategies for addressing these. He said the current Southern Appalachian Assessment being conducted by SAMAB agencies should be a focus of committee actions this year, and should shape their approach to activities next year and thereafter.
"The committees also have a major role to play in implementing the SAMAB Action Plan," he said. Copies of the plan were distributed at the meeting.
Van Sickle said the committees "serve as the eyes and ears of SAMAB," adding: "We need to use them to network here in the region and across the nation."
He urged the committees to continue to be opportunistic in their approach while they also follow the guidelines of the Action Plan.
The committees spent Thursday afternoon planning their activities for the year, and reported back to the Executive Committee the following day. The Executive Committee endorsed the following initiatives:
Research and Monitoring Dr. Elizabeth Smith, Chairman
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