Northwest Forest Plan Land Allocation Map Update
Process Description
In August 2002, at the direction of the Regional Interagency Executive Committee (RIEC), the Regional Ecosystem Office requested information from the Land Management agencies to prepare updated maps of the Northwest Forest plan (See REO_Data_Request 8_23_02). An interagency work group, consisting of representatives of the major land management agencies (Region 6 Forest Service, Oregon/Washington BLM, Region 5 Forest Service, California BLM) and the Regional Ecosystem Office formulated the request and guided the assembly of the final products.
Ø Changes and adjustments to land allocations that had occurred since the Northwest Forest Plan was published.
Ø Inconsistencies in interpretation among administrative units for certain land allocations (especially Congressionally Reserved and Administratively Withdrawn).
Ø Adjustment of the coarse initial land allocation map from the 40-acre grid to definable boundaries.
The updated GIS products are to be regarded as a display map of the Northwest Forest plan, rather than a control map. The Northwest Forest plan is an amendment incorporated into the individual Forest Service Land Management Plans and Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plans. It is these plans and the control maps maintained by the local units that actually provide the area specific direction. This update was done with the participation of each of the local planning units and should match fairly closely to GIS products maintained at the national forest or BLM district level.
All of these GIS products are based upon the original direction in the Northwest Forest plan or as amended into the individual unit plans. The changes in the GIS products presented are to be regarded as corrections to the NwFP map display and are fundamentally consistent with the existing direction of both the NwFP and the individual unit plans.
Forest Service and BLM employees performed the work on the project with a focus on updating the information about the lands managed by these agencies. By definition, all land allocations managed by other federal agencies are in Congressionally Reserved (CR) land allocations. These lands managed by the other federal agencies were added into the maps during the final stage of the project.
While a goal of the update project was to produce information sets to display all of the Northwest Forest Plan land allocations, this was not practical for Riparian Reserves and Administratively Withdrawn.
In the case, of riparian reserves it was unclear if individual BLM Districts or National Forests had actually mapped all of their riparian reserves, especially for low order streams. Collecting this product would have been a substantial effort, possibly forcing local units to engage in additional mapping work to the detriment of other needed work. For these reasons, a decision was made that the update would not assemble GIS products on riparian reserves.
Administratively withdrawn areas in the NwFP is are lands where scheduled timber harvest is precluded in National Forest or District plans to achieve some other purpose. Administratively withdrawn areas were limited to a specific set of identified management emphases that specifically preclude the scheduled harvest of timber. However, not all of the emphases or areas withdrawn from scheduled timber harvest appear on the display map. Therefore, the display of the administratively withdrawn areas in the GIS products should be regarded as only a partial display of all of the administratively withdrawn areas. To get a complete understand of the Administratively Withdrawn areas or lands that are not scheduled for timber production, the individual National Forest or BLM District should be consulted.
DESCRIPTION OF INDIVIDUAL MAP COVERAGES
Northwest Forest Plan Land Allocations-LUA
This map coverage (LUA) contains a display of the land use allocations of the Northwest Forest Plan with the same land allocation categories of the original Northwest Forest Plan map. It consists of three attribute fields:
AGENCY: Identifies the federal agency (subdivided by region) administering the land.
UNIT: Identifies the specific administrative or planning unit responsible for the area within the identified agency.
From the AGENCY and UNIT fields maps can be developed to identify the basic extent of surface ownership administered by the agencies and units.
LUA: This identifies the land allocations of the Northwest Forest Plan as follows:
CR-Congressionally Reserved
LSR-Late Successional Reserves limited to mapped LSRs (category 1 and 2 as described on page C-10 and C-11 or the Record of Decision)
MLSA-Managed Late-Successional Areas
AW-Administratively Withdrawn
AMA-Adaptive Management Areas
AMR-Adpative Management Area and Late Successional Reserve
MATRR-Matrix/Riparian Reserve
ND-Not designated Land has no NwFP land allocation designation
These were assembled consistent with the hierarchy for land allocations described on page A-5 in the ROD in the following sequence:
1. Congressionally Reserved Areas
2. Late-Successional Reserves
3. Adaptive Management Areas
4. Managed Late-Successional Reserves
5. Administratively Withdrawn
6. Riparian Reserves and Matrix (Combined)
If an overlap occurred between the land allocations, it was resolve in favor of the higher allocation on the hierarchy. The following summarizes the approaches used to develop each land allocation and the major kinds of changes represented in the display map:
CR-Congressionally Reserved: The CR category is limited to only congressionally designated areas that have language precluding not only scheduled timber harvest, but unscheduled timber harvest as well, except for a few limited circumstances. The remapping removed some existing CR land allocations that did not match this definition such as Scenic and Recreational river segments of Wild and Scenic Rivers. It also added CR areas established after the NwFP.
LSR-Late Successional Reserves and MLSA-Managed Late successional Areas: Late successional reserves and Managed Late successional areas were specific mapped land allocations of the Northwest Forest Plan. Changes to the Late Successional Reserve system were generally very limited.
AW-Administratively Withdrawn: As described previously, administratively withdrawn areas were identified based upon land allocations in the individual national forest and BLM District plans that preclude scheduled timber production and are consistent with a specified list of management emphases. Each administrative unit of the Forest Service and BLM mapped these administratively withdrawn lands for each of the identified emphases.
The emphases used to define the display of administratively withdrawn lands are:
Ø
Established and proposed Scenic and Recreation River
segments of the Wild and Scenic River System.
Ø
Nationally designated areas such as recreation
areas/monuments and proposed wilderness areas or wild river segments in
individual land management plans.
Ø
Established and proposed Research Natural Areas (Forest
Service) or Areas or Critical Environmental Concern (BLM)
Ø
Established and proposed Special Interest Areas (Forest
Service) managed for Historic, Botanical, Archeological, Geologic, Scenic or
other resources.
Ø
Established and proposed Experimental Forests
Ø
Recreation areas such as backcountry/near natural
areas/large recreational areas or scenic/recreational corridors
Ø
Wildlife areas such as species specific conservation
areas (e.g., areas identified for conservation of bald eagles, mountain goats,
lynx, etc.) and specifically designated wildlife habitats (e.g. old growth,
mosaic habitats, wetlands or botanical areas)
Ø
The Bend Municipal Watershed
Note that representation of these areas is limited to only areas that do not have scheduled timber harvest under current plans. Most changes to AW allocations were based upon the conformance or lack of conformance of the individual national forest or BLM District land allocations to the listed emphases used for administratively withdrawn.
Adaptive Management Areas: Changes in the Adaptive Management Areas were generally limited to the creation of a separate category was created to indicate the overlap between LSR and AMA (AMR).
MATRR-Matrix/Riparian Reserve: Matrix/Riparian Reserve Areas was determined as a residual after mapping all of the other categories. Since MATRR was determined as a residual, the changes to the display of MATRR lands was based solely upon the changes that resulted from actions on the other land allocations. As described previously, it should be recognized that some AW lands may be present within MATRR land allocation.
ND-Not Designated: Not designated areas are lands that have not received a land allocation under the Northwest Forest Plan. Most of these are lands that have been acquired since the approval of the NwFP, but have had no planning action to determine their allocation.
Late Successional
Reserves Elements 3&4
Table LUA-1 identifies the acreage of lands managed in each LUA category described above, and also the area included in the initially unmapped Late Successional Reserve elements 3 (Marbled Murrelet Sites) and 4 (Northern Spotted Owl Activity Centers). Due to the sensitivity of releasing the specific location of Threatened or Endangered Species, they are not shown in the LUA map coverage.
The Occupied Marbled Murrelet Sites-LSR3 is described on page C-10 of the ROD. Occupied sites are only considered a land allocation where they overlap the MATRR, AMA or AW in the LUA map coverage.
The Known Spotted Owl Activity Centers-LSR4 is described on pages C-10 and C-11 of the ROD. These activity centers are only considered a land allocation where they overlap the MATRR or AMA in the LUA map coverage.
Key Watershed-KWS Map
Coverage
The key watershed map coverage represents the key watersheds identified in the NwFP. The attributes included in the coverage are:
KWS_STATE: C, O or W for California, Oregon or Washington.
KWS_NUM: A number identifier for the watershed
KWS_NAME: The name of the watershed.
KWS_TIER: The type of key watershed as identified in the NwFP either a Tier 1 or Tier 2. (See ROD A-5, B-18, C-7)
Boundaries to key watersheds were adjusted from the original NwFP map coverage to match with actual 5th and 6th field watersheds or to align with changes made in individual National Forest or BLM District plans.
Northwest Forest Plan extent
This coverage displays the outer extent of the Northwest Forest plan based upon adjustments made in this process. These adjustments were fine scale changes that resulted either from amendments of individual unit plans or local interpretation to place the boundary at a more identifiable boundary.
Further information on these map coverages can be found in the metadata associated with the coverage.
KEY PREPARERS
Bill Connelly, USDA Forest Service Region 6 (Assembly of LUA coverage, Coordination of Region 6 Information)
Chris Cadwell, Oregon State BLM Office (Coordination of Oregon BLM information)
David Haney Oregon State BLM Office (Assembly of Key Watershed coverage, Production of Final Map Products)
Ralph Warbington, USDA Forest Service Region 5 (Coordination of Region 5 information)
Paul Fritzie, Northern California BLM (Coordination of California BLM information)
Dale Guenther, Regional Ecosystem Office (Initial coordination of data request and collection of data)