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APPENDIX 2 REPORTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL CENTERS Page
Rural technology Initiative (RTI) 2 Northwest Environmental Forum (NWEF) 23 Water Center (WC) 20 Stand management Cooperative (SMC) 37 Precision Forestry Cooperative (PFC) 54 Wind River Canopy Crane (WRCC) 68 Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) 105 Center for Sustainable Forestry at pack Forest (CSPPF)
131 University of Washington Botanical Gardens (UWBG) 151 Center for International Trade in Forest Products (CINTRAFOR) 165 RURAL TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE (RTI): STRATEGIC PLAN (DECEMBER 2008) Contents:
. History and Current Setting
. Comparative Advantages and Focus Areas for the Future
. Constituent Support
. Collaboration with other units
. Serving the Colleges Goals
. Funding History
. Future Funding Targets
. Organization and Leadership HISTORY AND CURRENT SETTING:
RTI was established in January 2000 by a federal grant as a pilot project
to accelerate the implementation of new technologies in rural forest
resource-based communities. Increasing complexity from changing
environmental regulations, such as the Forest and Fish Agreement in
Washington State, and the recognition that new research findings are well
ahead of implementation suggested the need for more rapid technology
transfer. Efforts to mitigate the substantial widening gap between urban
and rural incomes depend upon more successful technology transfer as well.
It was recognized that the University of Washington (UW) did not have base
funding for such activities yet had technology that could be implemented so
a program was developed jointly with Washington State University (WSU)
Cooperative Extension with the support of a Rural Advisory Board. Initial
funding was made possible by a Congressional Appropriation through USDA -
Forest Service Cooperative Programs. The RTI program won awards for transferring technology to small family
forest owners, and was given very high marks by a professional review team
with the recommendation that longer term funding should be arranged.
Efforts to move the funding from interim Interior earmarks to longer term
USDA tech transfer programs were initiated by gaining support for a
regional consortium from the Deans of all forestry related schools in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, however this brought with it
political difficulties to make the transition from a temporary home in the
Interior Budget to a more permanent home in the USDA budget, and funding
lapsed in 2006. Over the last 3 years RTI has continued to receive funding
from a variety of mostly competitive funding sources based on the
comparative advantages it had developed. RTI's future will depend first and foremost on its comparative advantage,
second, how it is able to support constituent groups that can provide
funding while being recognized for its unique contributions and third, how
it is able to collaborate with other research units given the complexity of
emerging science and applications. The comparative advantages RTI
developed in supporting technology transfer have been widely recognized and
RTI was selected to provide the timber supply and forest structure study in
the report on the Future of Washington's Forests and Forest Industries
requested by the state legislature in 2005. Similarly RTI's contributions
to fire risk reduction and carbon tracking resulted in supporting contracts
to USFS WDC Research and USFS Forest Products Laboratory. Additionally,
RTI's work in modeling and assessment of wildlife habitat resulted in
contracts with WADNR to support the wildlife habitat analysis portion of
the Forest Practices Board's wildlife work plan.
RTI'S COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE:
RTI has developed a significant comparative advantage in supporting
technology transfer by leveraging the value of university research through
both training the trainers and impacting the on the ground outcomes of
constituents. From a process perspective RTI developed a very positive
image of a team that could respond more directly to solving problems and
communicating results and was able to apply emerging sciences that were
being developed at the University of Washington as well as other schools.
RTI developed expertise in:
Forest management plans with supporting software
. Landscape management for multiple values (economics, habitat, fire &
insect risk, other eco-services such as aesthetics and biodiversity)
. Forest road layout and sediment reduction
. Forest economics
. Log grading and log economics
. Forest structure supporting multiple uses
. Forest residuals accessibility for biofuels
Technology Transfer and Training
. Interactive video for instant transport of technology
. Forest Management training
. Environmental Management training
. Training the extension trainers on technology
Economic impacts analysis
. Forest activities
. Industry activities
. Regional employment
. State and Local taxes
. Regulatory costs
Ecosystem metrics to support ecosystem services:
. Carbon tracking
. Wildlife habitat modeling and assessment
. Forest structure analysis (statistical tests for desired future
conditions, DFC)
. Fire risk reduction
. Climate impacts
. Clean air and water quantity and quality (sediment reduction)
. Wind throw risk
Other Forest Related Environmental Values
. LCI/LCA (life cycle environmental inventories and assessment( for
products, structures and biofuels)
. Intentional ecosytem management for habitat values
Ecosystem valuation
. Costs of production
. Public values of forest amenities
. Avoidable future costs such as the embedded costs associated with fire
risks
GIS applications
. Land-parcel database by owner with multiple layers to quantify their
contributions
. Inventory valuation
. Assessed land valuation and conversion risk
. Support for and uses of LiDAR such as using the calibrated inventory
to reduce fire risks
. Land use change quantification and mapping
Biofuel Support
. Accessibility and supply
. Collection volume and costs
. Processing
. Barriers to biofuel sourcing
. LCI/LCA Note that all of these topical areas are both politically and
scientifically "IN" and will be receiving money and support from multiple
sources in the future. RTI has been a pioneer in developing management
capabilities in most of these areas through technology transfer. The
primary issue is how to continue supporting these activities given the loss
of base level federal funding. Over the last two years RTI has been able to
raise competitive grants to continue operations. RTI has been able to
support many college research and educational activities. RTI technology
has been applied to the impact of climate change on inland forests, carbon
tracking as impacted by fires and fire reduction treatments, sustaining
critical habitats, biofuel collection and barriers, ecosystem values,
assessing habitat for multiple wildlife species, and will be able to
continue raising competitive funds subject to the unpredictable timing of
living off of competitive projects. The basis for a strategic plan will be to work more closely with other
college centers to smooth the work load while aggressively pursuing funding
in the areas that are both "In" and RTI has a comparative advantage. RTI
is providing the critical resource to support many of the basic research
directions within the college. All of these topical areas will remain
important to the problem solving objectives of a "new" College of the
Environment. Research without tech transfer has been under attack in recent years as not
producing outcomes commensurate to the investment according to federal
auditors and as such tech transfer more closely integrated to research has
risen in importance while becoming a critical link to demonstrate the value
of research in effecting real change in outcomes. Understanding the
technology transfer implications of future research development will be
critical to the college's success with the research and the outcomes it
spawns. Three areas that integrate across many of RTI's comparative advantages are
(1) The overwhelming recognition of the importance of forest health
restoration and the role that LiDAR as a new tool properly applied can
provide to improve forest health, (2) the recognized importance of keeping
working forests working while producing ecosystem service values and the
role that the Washington State Parcel Database can provide to understanding
what is important to protect and how to do it best, (3) the importance of
climate change and carbon mitigation to sustainability and how to measure
and manage carbon across all pools under different management, processing
and designs in the built environment including the opportunities for
biofuels to displace transportation fuels. (1) The overwhelming recognition of the importance of forest health and the
role that LiDAR as a tool properly applied can provide to improve forest
health: LiDAR data has been a primary research topic of the Precision
Forestry Coop for many years. RTI's participation in the Legislatures 2004
Forest Health Working Group resulted in the recommendation that LiDAR pilot
projects be implemented in order to demonstrate the importance of access to
publicly available tree list inventory data of sufficient quality that DNR
as the lead forest protection agency would be able to identify future
forest health problems and land