Forest Engineering Current Research

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RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

FACULTY RESEARCH

Paul Adams

Paul has been involved in research with one of his former Graduate Research Assistants, Anne Hairston, entitled "Opinions and field results from Oregon's new streamside rules". 0ver 500 landowners and operators who had harvested timber under Oregon's new stream-side protection rules were surveyed about their opinions and experience after timber harvest under the new rules, which were enacted in September 1994 primarily to increase protection of fish habitat. A summary of this research was published in the July 1997 issue of the Journal of Forestry (Oregon's Stream-side Rules: Achieving Public Goals on Private Land, by Hairston and Adams).

Bob Beschta (Emeritus Faculty)

Teaching, research, and a variety of other activities continue to occupy his time. Trying to keep up-to-date in the Watershed Processes class (FE430/530) and the Water quality class (FE535) is increasingly challenging in light of recent concerns associated with landslides, stream temperatures, large woody debris management, riparian rules, and others. The large storms of the last couple of years have rekindled interest in landslides, road drainage and large woody debris. With regard to stream temperatures, the implementation of new Oregon standards in 1995 have refocused interests on appropriate shading levels along stream systems throughout the state. Over the last year, several of Bob's graduate students have brought their research projects to fruition. A variety of ongoing research efforts, particularly with graduate student projects, keep challenging Bob's under-standing of the hydrology of mountain watersheds. These research projects involve additional work on stream temperatures in eastern Oregon streams, long-term measurements of channel recovery, the role of streamside vegetation upon channel morphology for low-gradient stream systems, and others.

John Garland

Professor and Timber Harvesting Extension Specialist began a sabbatical on September 1st, that continues through May, 1998, and includes several international trips. The first trip took him to an IUFRO conference in Kenya followed by work in nearby Tanzania to prepare a proposal to introduce cable logging. Garland and Dr. Dunstan Shemwetta (OSU FE PhD June '97) then went on to south Africa to present a course on Selection, Training and Motivation of the Forestry Workforce and to visit industry operations in cooperation with Forest Engineering South Africa (FESA, an industry/government association). John then embarked on a five week assignment with CORMA (Chilean Wood Industries Association) and Institutal Forestal (INFOR, Chilean Forestry Research Institute). John also presented a paper and a workshop in connection with the Third International Work in the Forestry Sector Conference held in conjunction with EXPOCORMA in Concepción.

Loren Kellogg

Loren's research work continues to investigate ways to apply forest engineering technology to solve problems and accomplish a broad spectrum of forest resource objectives. Current research project topics that he is working on with his graduate students and research assistants are: (1) skyline logging applications for fuel reduction/thinning in eastern Oregon, (2) harvest system selection and design for stand damage reduction in central Oregon noble fir thinning, and (3) harvest planning requirements, economics and environmental performance of alternative logging systems in western Oregon thinning. During the fall, Loren's group successfully completed their fourth "Commercial Thinning and Harvest Planning for Skyline Operations" workshop. Starting in January 1998, Loren will be working in South Africa for one year while on a sabbatical leave from OSU. This experience will involve interactions with the Forest Engineering program at the University of Stellenbosch and the Forest Engineering South Africa research program.

Jim Kiser

The winter storms of the past two seasons have caused a great deal of damage to the roads and road structures in the McDonald-Dunn Research Forests. This situation has created an opportunity for the Forest Engineering students in FE 310, Forest Route Surveying, to put their education into practice against a set of real-world problems. With the collaboration of the Research Forest engineer, Bill Fieber, and the Director of the Research Forest, Dave Lysne, three of the highest priority areas for repair in the forest will be assigned to student crews this fall.

Brian Kramer

Brian is currently directing a research project in S.E. Alaska studying fish passage through forest road stream structures. Brian is also developing a prototype hauling vehicle unit to haul full length poplar trees from the stump to a central processing location. A prototype vehicle will be field tested during the summer of 1998.

Jeff McDonnell

Forest hydrology, hillslope processes, isotope tracing, snow hydrology, hydrolocial modeling. Conceptualization of streamflow generation processes in steep terrain; how water flowpaths on steep slopes affect slope stability; use of isotope tracers for determining water source, age and flowpath; study of forest road and logging effects on stream hydrology and water quality; certified Professional Hydrologist (P.H.).

Eldon Olsen

Research in cooperation with Loren Kellogg's Willamette Young Growth Study has produced some significant findings relating to collecting production information. Mohammad Hossain, a PhD student from Bangladesh, is currently writing his thesis on this topic. In the area of teaching, Eldon has been instructing 3 classes a year as well as advising high quality new students.

Marv Pyles

Impacts to forest road systems and streams from landslides and floods in February and November of 1996, coupled with the tragic deaths of five people from landslides in Douglas county, brought the landslide issue to the forefront again. Landslide concerns are also a primary driver in Oregon's Salmon and Steelhead recovery plans. As most of you know, landslides are a primary field of interest of Marv's. He has spent much of the past year involved with the Governor's office, the Board of Forestry, and the legislature, trying to convey to them in laymans terms a lot of information about soil properties and soil mechanics. Marv is as convinced as he was 16 years ago when he started teaching in Forest Engineering, that the best forest management and forest engineering decisions are the result of thoughtful analysis and deliberation by educated professionals. Marv's first love and commitment may be to teaching, but he also enjoys research. Over the past five years or so he has continued his work in the hydraulics and hydro-logy of stream crossings. As you are no doubt aware, culverts on forest roads can be a barrier to movement of fish. He has been working with a team of graduate students to define the design options that will allow us to continue use of cost effective culverts, and at the same time insure the passage of both juvenile and adult fish as required by the Forest Practice Rules.

John Sessions

John continues to teach a variety of classes for forest engineering, forest resources, and civil engineering including: engineering computations, logging mechanics, strategic forest planning, tactical forest planing, transpor-tation planning, advanced logging mechanics, combinatorial optimization, and international forestry. His forest planning research continues with CLAMS (Coastal Landscape and Modeling Study) and the Applegate AMA projects focusing on representing natural disturbance in forest planning. This work builds on the progress made during the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (Journal of Forestry, January 1998). Recently John has been involved in a number of international harvesting and forest planning projects including the Russian Far East, Malaysia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil as well as serving with the International Selection Committee for the Marcus Wallenberg Prize (http://www.wallenberg.com).
John is also developing the helicopter landing optimization (HELO) model, chairs the forest planning team for the Blodgett tract of the College Research Forests, is participating in the revision of the McGraw-Hill text 'Forest Planning' and is editor of the Proceedings for the International Mountain Logging Symposium to be hosted by OSU in March, 1999.

Arne Skaugset

Arne continues to fill a half time appointment with Adaptive COPE as the Hydrologist/Soil Scientist and the editor of the COPE Report. Two research projects in hydrology from Adaptive COPE remain active. These projects are the "Active riparian area management" project and the "Effect of large woody debris piece size and orientation on aquatic habitat" project. Arne has three research projects ongoing that are not attached to Adaptive COPE. One is a research project funded by the Oregon Department of Forestry and it involves an inventory of existing roads and drainage structures on state and private land in Oregon and a study of road-related landslides on forest roads resulting from the February, 1996 storm. A second ongoing research project is the "Analysis and utility of stream habitat inventory data." The third ongoing research project is "Managing Landslide Prone Forested Terrain."

Michael Wing

Mike is a recent addition to the Forest Engineering Department and has extensive experience in the use of GIS and spatial analysis tools for natural resource research. His primary research involves the creation and analysis of a spatially-referenced stream habitat database. Once completed, the database will contain fish habitat information for about 3,500 streams in western Oregon. The end result should be the most comprehensive spatially-referenced aquatic habitat database available for Oregon. Analysis will describe and evaluate habitat conditions throughout this region and look at differences among landuses and ownerships. Other research activities includes describing the spatial distribution of large woody debris in several Oregon streams and assisting in Arne Skaugset's landslide research.

FE DEPARTMENT RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

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