Effects of roads in forested ecosystems span direct physical and ecological ones (such as geomorphic and hydrologic effects), indirect and landscape level ones (such as effects on aquatic habitat, terrestrial vertebrates, and biodiversity conservation), and socioeconomic ones (such as passive-use value, economic effects on development and range management). Road effects take place in the contexts of environmental settings, their history, and the state of engineering practices, and must be evaluated in those contexts for best management approaches.Keywords: Roads, roadless areas, forest ecosystems, geomorphology, hydrology, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity, nonmarket values, heritage values, economic development, grazing, mineral resources, fire. AbstractRoads are a vital component of civilization. They provide access for people to study, enjoy, and commune with forested wildlands and to extract an array of resources from natural and modified ecosystems. Roads have well-documented, short-and long-term effects on the environment that have become highly controversial, because of the value society now places on unroaded wildlands and because of wilderness conflicts with resource extraction.The approach taken in this report is to identify known and hypothesized road-related issues and to summarize the scientific information available about them. The report identifies links among processes and effects that suggest both potential compatible uses and potential problems and risks. Generalizations are made where appropriate, but roads issues and road science usually cannot be effectively separated from the specific ecologic, economic, social, and public lands management contexts in which roads exist or are proposed.Across a forest or river basin, the access needs, economic dependencies, landscape sensitivities, downstream beneficial uses of water, and so on can be reasonably well defined, but these relations tend to differ greatly from place to place. An effective synthesis of road issues draws local experts together to thoroughly evaluate road and access benefits, problems and risks, and to inform managers about what roads may be needed, for how long, for what purposes, and at what benefits and costs to the agency and society.Road effects and uses may be somewhat arbitrarily divided into beneficial and detrimental. The largest group of beneficial variables relates to access. We identified access-related benefits as harvest of timber and special forest products, grazing, mining, recreation, fire control, land management, research and monitoring, access to private inholdings, restoration, local community critical needs, subsistence, and the cultural value of the roads themselves. Nonaccess-related benefits include edge habitat, fire breaks, absence of economic alternatives for land management, and jobs associated with building and maintaining the roads.Undesirable consequences include adverse effects on hydrology and geomorphic features (such as debris slides and sedimentation), habitat fragmentation, predation, road ki...

This guidebook contains science-based principles, processes, and tools necessary to assist with developing adaptation options for national forest lands. The adaptation process is based on partnerships between local resource managers and scientists who work collaboratively to understand potential climate change effects, identify important resource issues, and develop management options that can capitalize on new opportunities and reduce deleterious effects. Because management objectives and sensitivity of resources to climate change differ among national forests, appropriate processes and tools for developing adaptation options may also differ. Regardless of specific processes and tools, the following steps are recommended: (1) become aware of basic climate change science and integrate that understanding with knowledge of local resource conditions and issues (review), (2) evaluate sensitivity of specific natural resources to climate change (rank), (3) develop and implement strategic and tactical options for adapting resources to climate change (resolve), and (4) monitor the effectiveness of adaptation options (observe) and adjust management as needed. Results of recent case studies on adaptation in national forests and national parks can facilitate integration of climate change in resource management and planning and make the adaptation process more efficient. Adaptation to climate change will be successful only if it can be fully implemented in established planning processes and other operational aspects of national forest management.

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Mangrove forests have been globally recognised as their vital functions in preventing coastal erosion, mitigating effects of wave actions and protecting coastal habitats and adjacent shoreline land-uses from extreme coastal events. However, these functions are under severe threats due to the rapid growth of population, intensive shrimp farming and the increased intensity of severe storms in Hau Loc and Nga Son districts, Thanh Hoa province. This research was conducted to monitor spatial-temporal changes in mangrove extents using Landsat and Sentinel imageries from 2005 to 2018. Unsupervised and supervised classification methods and vegetation indices were tested to select the most suitable classification method for study sites, then to quantify mangrove extents and their changes in selected years. The findings show that supervised classification was the most suitable in study sites compared to vegetation indices and unsupervised classification. Mangrove forest extents increased by 7.5 %, 38.6 %, and 47.8 % during periods of 2005 - 2010, 2010 - 2015 and 2015 - 2018, respectively. An increase of mangrove extents resulted from national programs of mangrove rehabilitation and restoration during 2005- 2018, increased by 278.0 ha (123.0 %).