Forest Stewardship Spatial Analysis Project Wisconsin Methodology

Transcription

1 Project Summary One purpose of the Spatial Analysis Project (SAP) is to create a data layer for the state that represents levels of potential benefit from, or suitability for inclusion in, the Forest Stewardship Program as delivered by state forestry agencies and the U.S. Forest Service. Private land program and GIS staff from the four states involved in the pilot SAP effort (Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Missouri), along with Forest Service program and GIS staff identified 12 factors (or layers of information) which help identify the Stewardship potential of a given piece of land. Each state had the opportunity to expand on the base 12 layers if need be. For Wisconsin, 3 additional layers were included indicated with an asterisk (*) below. The information was differentiated into two groups: A.) resource potential and B.) resource threats. A.) The resource potential factors include: Riparian Corridors Priority Watersheds Forest Patch Size Natural Heritage Inventory Public Drinking Water Supply Sources Private Forest Lands Proximity to Public Lands Wetlands Topographic Slope Outstanding and Exceptional Resource Waters* Conservation Lands* B.) The resource threat factors include: Forest Health Developing Areas Wildfire Assessment Impaired Waters (303d)* Overarching considerations in choosing data layers for use in the Stewardship Spatial Analysis Project (SAP) included: 1) that the data is regionally available and 2) that the data is consistent in addressing the various resource potentials and resource threats Project Goals: Assess program effectiveness in serving state-identified critical resource management needs. Create geo-referenced (GIS) data displaying Stewardship Plans relative to Stewardship potential. Relate factors such as stewardship practices completed and resource condition and indicate what practices might be most effective in addressing critical needs. WI SAP Methodology Page 1 of 25 12/01/2006

2 Assess threats to forest resources such as 1.) Insects and diseases 2.) Increasing population density 3.) Wildfire and 4.) Land use change such as ownership type and protection status. Identify and develop a digital data layer of forestlands critical to state, regional, or national resource issues, creating a statewide map to highlight lands where stewardship planning and implementation would be especially valuable. Provide tools that help states focus future stewardship efforts to effectively address critical issues. There are certain lands within any state are not eligible for inclusion in the Forest Stewardship Program. Land use / land cover factors which identify these areas are open water, urban areas and publicly owned lands. Wisconsin does not have one dataset for public lands, so a layer was created by merging individual agency files (DNR Managed Lands (including ownership, easement and leased lands), Board of Commissioner of Public Lands (BCPL), National Forests, and County Forests). A mask was created to exclude these areas from the analysis. Once the 15 layers were identified, sideboards were created for each of the layers to determine what criteria would be included in the analysis. Using a riparian buffer for example, a distance for the buffer was agreed upon by a group of resource specialists. Next, the relative importance of each of the layers was determined based on statespecific conditions. Resource Specialists from 3 divisions within the WDNR (9 people total) discussed the sideboards used for each individual layer, ranked the layers and an average weight was calculated for each. The 15 layers were combined using a GIS overlay analysis which took into account the weight for each layer. The final product was a single data layer which represents the suitability of the land for inclusion in the Forest Stewardship Program. Possible values from this analysis range from 0 to 1, with a value of 1 representing the highest level of suitability. Actual values for Wisconsin ranged from to A natural breaks classification algorithm was used to break the values into low, medium and high classes. The result is shown below. Summary statistics were calculated and a series of maps were then created to display the data. See Appendix A and D for more detail on the tables and maps. WI SAP Methodology Page 2 of 25 12/01/2006

3 Where have we been? In order to understand where the Forest Stewardship Program has been previously implemented, an approximation of the property boundaries where a Managed Forest Law plans occurred were drawn on a map. These boundaries are a generalized spatial representation of lands enrolled by landowners in the Managed Forest Law program. Parcels smaller than 40 acres are not individually delineated in this layer, but are represented by the 40-acre quarter-quarter they lie within. This process results in polygons of 40 acres, minimum. However, the actual size of the enrolled property may be as small as 10 acres. WI SAP Methodology Page 3 of 25 12/01/2006

4 Certain government lots or fractional lots, that cannot be represented by a PLSS quarterquarter number, are not included in this GIS layer. An estimated 5% of the MFL lands are excluded from this layer because of this issue. Currently no other stewardship plans (other than those enrolled in MFL) are mapped. Stewardship plan polygons were then overlaid on the Stewardship potential layer to assess Stewardship efforts to date. WI SAP Methodology Page 4 of 25 12/01/2006

5 Data Development A.) Riparian Corridors: Originally derived from the blue lines from the 1:24,000 or 7.5 minute USGS topographical quad maps. A 1:24K scale representation of hydrographic features were buffered to create riparian corridors. It is likely that land within the buffer corridor will be considered higher priority for Stewardship attention. Riparian corridors were created by buffering 300 feet each side of the perennial, intermittent stream and 300 feet buffer from the shoreline on open water. A 300 ft buffer was used because that is standard distance for shoreland zones for rivers, and a minimum buffer for most wildlife. The buffers are shown in blue on the map at right. WI SAP Methodology Page 5 of 25 12/01/2006

6 B.) Priority Watersheds: Created as a result of the WDNR NPS Water Pollution Abatement Program, also generally know as the NPS Priority Watershed Program. These watersheds have been identified as areas to clean up the non-point source pollution, to improve water quality. This program is being phased out, but projects will continue for approximately 5-6 years. This program is being replaced by statewide performance standards, and smaller scale projects. Areas of the state where a considerable amount of resources have been allocated, there is a potential that inclusion of these areas into the stewardship program can benefit water quality. If the watershed was considered a priority through the NPS Water Pollution Abatement program, it was included in the analysis. The priority watersheds are shown in blue on the map. WI SAP Methodology Page 6 of 25 12/01/2006

7 C.) Forest Patch Size: All forest cover used in this project was extracted from the WISCLAND Landcover Data. This landcover classification was based on Landsat 30 meter imagery acquired in 1992 & See Appendix B for a cross walk between WISCLAND and NLCD. In Wisconsin, areas with large contiguous forest patches are more important than areas with smaller forest patches for wildlife. It is understood that for some forest types, a small patch can be more important (because it is a rare or an uncommon type) than a larger patch of a more abundant forest type. It has also been recognized that smaller patches and open areas can provide the greatest potential to benefit from increased Stewardship activity. Due to the differences between WI s northern and southern tension zones, a split of the state was made to differentiate the forest patch size based on its geographical position within the state. WLC classes were used to create a "forest" layer: deciduous forest, coniferous forest, mixed forest & woodland, lowland shrub, forested wetlands, and shrubland (WLC level 2 classes 161, 175, 190, 217, 222, and 250). All forest polygons less than 10 acres in size were deleted to reduce noise in the analysis, and because the minimum size tract eligible for the Stewardship Program is 10 acres. Large roads create discontinuities in forest cover and reduce forest patch size for some wildlife species. Accordingly, the state-maintained roads were buffered by road type: 100 feet (each side) for interstates, 55 feet (each side) for U.S. and WI highways. This buffered road layer was then erased through the forest patches layer. The erase process has the effect of cutting a hole in the forest layer wherever the buffered roads occur. The state was then split into the Northern and Southern Province based on the National Ecological Framework of Hierarchical Units (NHFEU). For the northern ½ of the state, a 100 acre minimum forest patch size was used, while a 40 acre minimum forest patch size was used in the southern part of the state. The result is the forest patch layer. The result is shown in green. WI SAP Methodology Page 7 of 25 12/01/2006

8 D.) Natural Heritage Inventory: Individual plant, animal occurrences, and high quality community occurrences from the Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory Database were used to represent areas of biological importance. Records are created using 1:24,000 scale USGS topographic maps as the base, buffering some points based on their rank. NOTE: Not all parts of the state have been inventoried for threatened or endangered species or communities. Not seeing an occurrence located, does not necessarily mean there are not threatened or endangered species in a given area. These areas are important from the Forest Stewardship Program s perspective to help preserve and protect critical dwindling habitat and threatened or endangered species. This includes maintaining and protecting rare natural communities a diversity of plant and animal species. Any records from 1970 and more recent are included, excluding the unknown items in the last observation field. Also excluded from the dataset was the G precision (general precision, mappable to a five-mile radius). The points and polygons with a S (second, mappable to an accuracy of a 3-second radius), F (forty, mappable to a 40 acre area), Q (quarter, mappable to a 160 acre area), NM (not mapped, occurrences are not placed as dots on a topographic map and lat/longs are not calculated and therefore there is no other precision code. Generally the Element Occurrences (EOs) are not mapped for one of two reasons: 1.) There are too many records ( ) occurrences and it was decided that mapping each occurrence would not be a worthwhile use of staff time. 2.) The EOs cover too large an area to effectively depict their locations on a map (as in the case with the riverine aquatic taxa such as mussels or dragonflies). The precision codes for the items above were then buffered to 2640 feet. Those with an M precision was not buffered, since there is already an inherent buffer (1-1.5 mile radius) created based on the M precision. These areas are shown in brown. WI SAP Methodology Page 8 of 25 12/01/2006

9 E.) Public Drinking Water Supply: The purpose of the Drinking Water System is to enforce Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulations covering Public Water Systems (PWS). This is an inventory of the public water supply systems in the state of Wisconsin. Source scale for this data is 1:24,000. These are the highest risk areas that could threaten the public drinking water supply. Raw data is not available for viewing This layer would be important protect from a Forest Stewardship perspective. It helps illustrate the benefits of slowing down water runoff from the landscape and encouraging groundwater recharge. In Wisconsin, the majority of the drinking water comes from a groundwater source. Source Water Areas can be used without buffers, since an inherent buffer distance was already included in this layer. This layer only includes the public drinking water supply. No private wells are represented since the location is sensitive and rather inaccurate. The raw data is not available for viewing, but was incorporated into the GIS analysis. WI SAP Methodology Page 9 of 25 12/01/2006

10 F.) Private Forest Lands: All forest cover used in this project was extracted from the WISCLAND Landcover Data. This landcover classification was based on Landsat 30 meter imagery acquired in 1992 & See Appendix B for a cross walk between WISCLAND and NLCD. This layer illustrates the amount of existing forests and the importance of protecting and practicing sustainable management on the areas that already exist within the state. This layer will be useful as a filter in identifying potential areas for future Stewardship outreach. Five WLC classes were used to create a "forest" layer: coniferous forest, broad-leaved deciduous forest, deciduous forest, mixed deciduous/coniferous, lowland shrub wetlands, forested wetlands, and shrubland (WLC level 2 classes 161, 175, 190, 217, 222, and 250). All forest polygons less than 10 acres in size were deleted to reduce noise in the analysis, and because the minimum size tract eligible for the Stewardship Program is 10 acres. Private forest land is created by erasing a public lands shape file through the forest layer, creating "holes" in place of the public lands. These areas are shown in green. WI SAP Methodology Page 10 of 25 12/01/2006

11 G.) Proximity to Public Lands: In Wisconsin, no single layer exists to represent public ownership, so shapefile was created by merging individual agency files (DNR Managed Lands (including ownership, easement and leased lands), Board of Commissioner of Public Lands (BCPL), National Forests, and County Forests). This layer starts with the assumption that Public lands are in a permanently protected status, and includes private lands under a permanent protection status (easements or others). Areas that are in close proximity to the public lands would be weighted higher for inclusion into the Forestry Stewardship Program to increase the forest block sizes. The layers (DNR Managed Lands (including ownership, easement and leased lands), Board of Commissioner of Public Lands (BCPL), National Forests, and County Forests) were unioned, creating one layer, which was buffered by 2640 feet. The source scale for all the individual shapefiles is 1:24,000. These areas are shown in tan. WI SAP Methodology Page 11 of 25 12/01/2006

12 H.) Wetlands: Wisconsin Wetland Inventory (WWI) maps show graphic representations of the type, size and location of wetlands in Wisconsin. These maps have been prepared from the analysis of high altitude imagery in conjunction with soil surveys, topographic maps, previous wetland inventories and field work. State statute defines a wetland as An area where water is at or near, or above the land surface long enough to be capable of supporting aquatic or hydrophytic vegetation, and which have soils indicative of wet conditions. The principal focus of the WWI is to produce wetland maps that are graphic representations of the type, size and location of wetlands in Wisconsin. Within this context, the objective of the WWI is to produce reconnaissance level information of these habitats such that they are accurate at the nominal scale of the 1:24,000 (1 inch = 2000 feet) base map. Prioritization of this layer will result in using Stewardship to achieve higher degree of protection for wetlands. Wisconsin Wetlands Inventory was used where available. In areas that WWI line work did not exist, WISCLAND Landcover was used. ALL wetlands were used and buffered by 300 feet, which is a standard distance for shoreline zoning. These areas are shown on the map in blue. WI SAP Methodology Page 12 of 25 12/01/2006

13 I.) Topographic Slope: A statewide 30 meter Digital Elevation Model (1:24,000 scale source) from the National Elevation Dataset (USGS). This layer can be used to highlight areas where degree of slope points to a critical need for management plans and professional assistance. These areas need special attention for harvesting activities, road building concerns, Best Management Practices (BMPs) and erosion control measures that will be addressed in a forest stewardship plan. Similarly this can be used as an indicator of the site s erodibility and of a need for stewardship outreach and landowner education. The DEM was used to select areas where slope is greater than 12%. WI chose 12% as its cutoff because that is consistent with other breaks found in soil slopes (soil surveys, etc.). These areas are shown in brown. WI SAP Methodology Page 13 of 25 12/01/2006

14 J.) Forest Health: For Wisconsin, there are a number of threats to the resource that can be addressed silviculturally. The ones included in this effort include, Armillaria root rot (Aspen/Birch), Jack Pine Budworm (Jack Pine), Oak Wilt (Oak), Pine Bark Beetle (Pine), Budworm (Spruce/Fir) and Emerald Ash borer (Ash). These threats were mapped to determine the risk of having 25% above normal mortality over a 15 year period. The stewardship program is interested in identifying areas of health risk where silviculture can be used as a treatment. In, Wisconsin there are a number of pests listed above, that if an outbreak occurs, the stewardship program can help with treatments such as salvage cuts. Based on the threats identified that can cause a risk of over 25% above normal mortality in a 15 year period, the values ranging from medium, high and very high risks (40 to 100) were selected for inclusion into this analysis. The areas are shown in Maroon. WI SAP Methodology Page 14 of 25 12/01/2006

15 K.) Developing Areas: Based on U.S. Census Bureau 1990 and 2000 data. Census block group polygons from 1990 and Areas that meet these criteria are beginning to develop, but are not yet at the point where development pressures are not out of control. Inclusion into the Forestry Stewardship Program will help keep these lands from becoming developed. Census block group polygons were unioned to deal with differing census geography boundaries and the number of households per square kilometer was calculated. The change in number of households / sq. km. from 1990 to 2000 was then calculated. Block group polygons where the change was >= 1 and <= 8 households / sq. km. and not in urban areas were selected. These areas are shown in purple. WI SAP Methodology Page 15 of 25 12/01/2006

16 L.) Wildfire Assessment: An analysis was done to identify broad areas of the state that are at relatively high exposure to resource damage due to wildfire. The approach used in this risk assessment model is based on the Methodology section of the NASF Field Guidance document, which recommends assessing and mapping four factors that represent wildfire risk: 1) Historic Fire Occurrence, 2.) Hazard, 3.) Values Protected, and 4.) Protection Capabilities. Modifications to this methodology were made to suit the statewide data layers available for Wisconsin. This layer illustrates areas where a Fire Protection Assessment indicates a higher threat of wildland fires. The medium and high (5 through 9) categories from the original assessment were used to create the "1" or hit cells for this layer. These areas are shown in red. WI SAP Methodology Page 16 of 25 12/01/2006

17 M.) Impaired Waters 303(d): Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act requires each state to periodically submit to EPA for approval a list of impaired waters. Impaired waters are those that are not meeting the state's water quality standards. The WI DNR last submitted an updated list to EPA in April 2004, approved by EPA in September These are areas of the state where we can hope to improve the water quality by entering the surrounding land into the Forest Stewardship Program. The waterbodies that were impaired by only PCBs or Hg contamination were removed, because the Forest Stewardship Program cannot address these issues silviculturally. Each side of the stream or shoreland was buffered 300 feet which is the distance used most often in shore land zoning. These areas are shown on the map in red. WI SAP Methodology Page 17 of 25 12/01/2006

18 N.) Outstanding and Exceptional Resource Waters - OERWs: Wisconsin's Outstanding and Exceptional Resource Waters Program is designed to maintain the water quality in Wisconsin's cleanest waters. An outstanding resource water is defined as a lake or stream having excellent water quality, high recreational and aesthetic value, high quality fishing and is free from point source or non-point source pollution. An exceptional resource water is defined as a stream exhibiting the same high quality resource values as outstanding waters, but may be impacted by point source pollution or have the potential for future discharge from a small sewer community. These are the more pristine water resources in the state. These waters are in need protection in order to maintain their high water quality and the critical habitat they provide for aquatic species. Sustainably managed forests assist in keeping these waters clean by the use of BMPs and other considerations when creating the management plans. Buffer the rivers and lakes 300 ft on each side of the stream, which is the distance used most often in shore land zoning. These areas are shown on the map in red. WI SAP Methodology Page 18 of 25 12/01/2006

19 O.) Conservation Lands: State Natural Areas boundaries and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) protected lands. State Natural Areas (SNAs) protect outstanding examples native landscape of natural communities, significant geological formations and archeological sites found in Wisconsin. The Nature Conservancy has identified approximately 13 million acres in need of conservation activity and taken a leadership role in the protection of some of our state's most critical landscapes. Proximity to these areas would indicate a larger area of protection and need for management plans. These areas are important from the Forest Stewardship Program s perspective to help preserve and protect critical dwindling habitat. This includes maintaining and protecting rare natural communities. The 2 layers (SNAs and TNC lands) were unioned together and buffered 2640 feet. These areas are shown on the map in green. WI SAP Methodology Page 19 of 25 12/01/2006

20 P.) Analysis Mask: The analysis mask contains the areas not considered in the analysis: urban/developed areas, publicly owned lands, and open water. These are areas where the stewardship program will not have an impact. Urban & developed areas were compiled from the U.S. Census TIGER files of incorporated places in Wisconsin, urban lands from the WISCLAND land cover classification and census block-groups whose household density was greater than 20 households / sq. km or whose growth in household density from 1990 to 2000 was greater than 15 households / sq. km. A composite shape file of these areas, public lands and open water polygons was created. The final layer was created by erasing the composite shape file of unavailable areas through the Wisconsin state polygon, creating a state with holes in it corresponding to the unavailable areas. The masked areas are shown at right in white. WI SAP Methodology Page 20 of 25 12/01/2006

21 Q.) Stewardship Plan Ownership Boundaries: In Wisconsin the majority of Stewardship Plans are entered into the Managed Forest Law (MFL) program. This program enacted in 1985, can ease the property tax burden for Wisconsin forestland owners who wish to manage their woodlands. The MFL program is intended to foster timber production on private forests, while recognizing other values. MFL participants pay property taxes at a reduced rate. A portion of the foregone taxes is recouped by the state at the time the timber is harvested. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimates MFL program participants can reduce their property tax an average of 80% after paying harvest taxes. This layer illustrates the property boundaries where the Forest Stewardship plans already exist. Stewardship plan polygons were then overlaid on the Stewardship potential layer to assess Stewardship efforts to date. These boundaries are a generalized spatial representation of lands enrolled by landowners in the Managed Forest Law program. Parcels smaller than 40 acres are not individually delineated in this layer, but are represented by the 40-acre quarter-quarter they lie within. This process results in polygons of 40 acres, minimum. However, the actual size of the enrolled property may be as small as 10 acres. Certain government lots or fractional lots, that cannot be represented by a PLSS quarterquarter number, are not included in this GIS layer. An estimated 5% of the MFL lands are excluded from this layer because of this issue. Forest Crop Law boundaries are included in here as well. Other stewardship lands are currently not mapped. The Stewardship Plan tracts are shown on the map in green. Stewardship plan polygons were then overlaid on the Stewardship potential layer to assess Stewardship efforts to date. For Wisconsin, 25% of stewardship plans fell into the low stewardship potential category, 49% fell into the medium range, and 22% fell into the high category. 4% fell into areas that, based on this analysis, had no stewardship potential. WI SAP Methodology Page 21 of 25 12/01/2006

22 Weighting Of the 15 criteria identified as contributing to the potential Stewardship Program benefit of a given piece of ground, some will likely be more important than others. To account for differing levels of importance, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources program staff (3 Divisions, 9 people total) ranked the 15 criteria. Staff members were asked to rank each factor from 1 to 15, with 1 being the most important. A mean response value was then calculated for each of the 15 factors. In order to give the most important factor the largest numerical value, the mean response for each factor was subtracted from the highest possible rank (15). These values were then converted to relative weights by dividing each by the sum by 15, the total number of layers used in the analysis. The relative weights were the values used in the analysis. The following table shows the weights for each layer. Theme Weight Riparian Corridors.054 Priority Watersheds.069 Forest Patch Size.058 Forest Health.079 Natural Heritage Inventory.102 Drinking Water Supply.077 Private Forest Land.037 Proximity to Public Lands.068 Wetlands.047 Topographic Slope.081 Developing Areas.106 Wildfire Assessment.048 Impaired waters (303d).043 Outstanding/Exceptional.059 Resource Waters (OERWs) Conservation Lands.072 An interesting sidelight, not actually used in the analysis, is the tabulation of the number of times a given factor was ranked as number one by the group during the ranking process. Criterion # 1 s Riparian Corridors 2 Natural Heritage Inventory 2 Drinking Water Supply 1 Topographic Slope 1 Forest Health 2 Conservation Lands 1 WI SAP Methodology Page 22 of 25 12/01/2006

23 GIS Analysis The GIS data representing each of the fifteen factors was converted to the ESRI Grid format with a cell size of 30 meters, an area representing approximately one-half acre on the ground. The Grid of each factor was converted to a 0, 1 format. For example, all the 30 m grid cells that fell within the riparian buffers were coded as a 1, while all the cells that were outside the areas of the riparian buffers were give the value 0 in that layer. Each Grid is multiplied by its weight value, so that the cells coded as 1 take on the weight value while all the 0 cells retain a value of 0. Because all fifteen grids were derived from the same source, the grid cells of each layer line up exactly with the cells from all the other layers. The overlay analysis procedure uses this fact to create a final result Grid whose individual cell values equal the sum of the values in the same location (on the same half-acre) from all fifteen layers. The maximum possible cell value in the final Grid is 1. Result Grid values for Wisconsin ranged from to No single cell location was a hit in all fifteen data layers, though many were misses in all fifteen layers. The grid cell with the highest value had a value of 0 in the Developing Areas layer but was a hit for the fourteen other layers. The ESRI Spatial Analyst extension allows for the specification of an analysis mask. The analysis mask layer described above was used in this capacity to exclude areas of Wisconsin that do not meet eligibility criteria for inclusion in the Forest Stewardship Program (open water, public lands, urban areas, etc.). To make interpretation of results easier and allow for computation of area statistics, three data classes were established to group the continuous cell values: Low, Medium and High Stewardship Potential. There are several possible methods for establishing class breaks. The Project group decided to use the Natural Breaks classification algorithm available in Arc View. Class definition values for the Wisconsin final results data are: Low Medium High The final result grid was reclassified to an integer grid where 1 represents Low, 2 Medium, and 3 High. For details on the GIS Technical Methodology used in Wisconsin, see Appendix C. Stewardship Plan Tract Digitizing These boundaries are a generalized spatial representation of lands enrolled by landowners in the Managed Forest Law program. Parcels smaller than 40 acres are not individually delineated in this layer, but are represented by the 40-acre quarter-quarter WI SAP Methodology Page 23 of 25 12/01/2006

24 they lie within. This process results in polygons of 40 acres, minimum. However, the actual size of the enrolled property may be as small as 10 acres. Certain government lots or fractional lots, that cannot be represented by a PLSS quarterquarter number, are not included in this GIS layer. An estimated 5% of the MFL lands are excluded from this layer because of this issue. Forest Crop Law boundaries are included in here as well. Other stewardship lands are currently not mapped. Hard copy Stewardship plans are collected centrally then are converted to microfiche for storage. Many foresters have estimated the tract boundaries, drawing them on paper to submit as part of the plan. There are a few foresters who are using GIS to map their entries, by heads-up digitizing the tracts. A separate tabular database is used to track these plans. The Wisconsin DNR is working on an application re-design effort that will store this information centrally, as well as allow for the field forester or consulting forester to spatially represent the property and stands. WI SAP Methodology Page 24 of 25 12/01/2006

25 Contact Information Janel Pike GIS Development Specialist (608) Nicole Potvin Stewardship Coordinator (608) Acknowledgements: The project was evaluated and ranked by a number of WDNR staff, then the final weighting was presented and approved by the Forest Stewardship committee on 1/17/06. Project coordination Janel Pike Nicole Potvin GIS Analysis Nina Janicki-Rihn Ranking members: Forestry - Jolene Ackerman Fire Protection Jeff Barkley Public Lands Specialist Eunice Padley Forest Ecologist Paul Pingrey Private Lands/Certification Specialist Nicole Potvin Forest Stewardship Coordinator Carmen Wagner Forest Hydrologist Water - Jim Baumann Watershed Management Specialist Amy Ihlenfeldt Public Water Supply Specialist Lands Drew Feldkirchner Endangered Resources Specialist WI SAP Methodology Page 25 of 25 12/01/2006