| Characterizing and regulating spatial structure of forested landscapes is an important step towards shifting the traditional focus of forest management from managing resource flows, such as timber and wildlife habitat, to managing forests. Concerns about maintenance of forest ecosystems, biodiversity and wildlife, as well as economic benefits, have led to the concept of forest landscape management. This thesis proposed forest landscape structure to be the focus of forest landscape management, based upon the premise that resource flows as well as biodiversity levels and ecosystem processes are determined by the array and spatial arrangement of forest conditions, i.e., spatial structure, and its change over time.;A comprehensive set of spatial structure measurements is presented and organized in a hierarchical framework. The framework organizes structural measurements by geographical scale--landscape and patch--and within these by areal, lineal, and topological categories. The hierarchical framework is offered as a means to simplify interpretation of a rather large and complex collection of measurements. Using the framework, the thesis presents more than two dozen measurements. In each case, the measurements are discussed in terms of calculation algorithm, interpretation and timber and/or wildlife habitat context.;Using the measurements of spatial structure, the thesis develops a forest landscape management design process. A GIS-based landscape management model was programmed that incorporated geographic format of harvesting patterns and performance indicators. They provided the basis for exploring landscape dynamics to design management towards a goal condition. In a case study, two different forest landscapes, one fragmented and the other not, were identified and quantified using the spatial structure measurements. The structural effects of six harvesting patterns (i.e, geographic format of harvesting) (scatter, cluster, nuclei and edge progressive, habitat preservation, edge type) on landscape fragmentation were explored using the model. Degree of structural change varied greatly with initial landscape structure and across the six harvesting patterns. The scatter and habitat preservation harvesting patterns created fragmented landscapes, while the cluster and nuclei progress patterns significantly reduced it, regardless of initial spatial structure. Likewise, the negative edge type and edge progressive harvesting patterns tended also to reduce fragmentation. Generally, for a given harvesting pattern, fragmentation was reduced in the initially fragmented forest, whereas the clustered forest soon became fragmented, but later recovered. In any event, the case study demonstrated that geographically based harvesting patterns and performance indicators provide an opportunity to design management for the creation of alternative forest landscapes of significantly different spatial structure.;The thesis concludes that forest landscape management, with its spatial structure focus, is a desirable evolution. Spatial structure represents a common language that various interest groups can use to communicate their values and objectives. Forest landscape management, however, is only possible with a GIS-based management design process in place. This must include: (i) a means of quantitatively measuring spatial structure so that objectives may be set and performance evaluated; (ii) a knowledge of what constitutes performance in spatial structure; (iii) a design toolkit of geographically referenced interventions; (iv) understanding of spatial forest dynamics; and (v) a computer model. |
