Nevertheless, NRV represents a strong foundation for developing desired this website conditions because it represents the ecological

capability of the landscape (USDA Forest Service, 2012a). We assessed forest vegetation restoration needs for the approximately 11,619,000 ha of forest across eastern Washington and eastern and southwestern Oregon, USA (Fig. 1). This geography generally includes the extent of historically frequent fire forests within the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region. These forests cover very broad climatic, edaphic, and topographic gradients with widely varying natural disturbance regimes. They range from Tsuga mertensiana forests and parklands along the crest of the Cascade Range with a mean annual precipitation of 1600–2800 mm per year and historical fire return intervals of several centuries Selleckchem Capmatinib to dry Pinus ponderosa forests in southeast Oregon with mean annual precipitation of 355–760 mm per year and historical fire return intervals of less

than 10 years ( Agee, 1993 and Franklin and Dyrness, 1973). Our challenge was to develop an approach that can be applied across this vast extent encompassing large environmental gradients with data that are consistent and meaningful. We built upon the conceptual framework of the LANDFIRE and Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) programs (Barrett et al., 2010 and Rollins, 2009) and incorporated Washington–Oregon specific datasets. Our assessment of forest vegetation restoration need is based on four primary data inputs: (1) a classification and map of forested biophysical settings, (2) NRV reference conditions for each biophysical setting, (3) a delineation of “landscape units” for each biophysical setting, and (4) a map of present day forest vegetation structure. Biophysical settings are potential vegetation units associated with characteristic land capabilities and disturbance regimes (Barrett et al., 2010). Many

different forested biophysical settings are found across Washington and Oregon based on vegetation, soils, climate, topography, and historic disturbance regimes (Keane et al., 2007, Pratt et al., 2006 and Rollins, 2009). They provide the framework for describing fire regimes. We mapped biophysical settings across Washington and Oregon using the 30 m pixel Dimethyl sulfoxide Integrated Landscape Assessment Projects’ Potential Vegetation Type (PVT) dataset (Halofsky et al., in press), which compiled previous potential forest vegetation classification and mapping efforts including Simpson, 2007 and Henderson et al., 2011. We also incorporated subsequent refinements to PVT mapping in southwestern Oregon (E. Henderson, Oregon State University, unpublished data). A biophysical setting model from either the LANDFIRE Rapid Assessment or the later LANDFIRE National program (Rollins, 2009 and Ryan and Opperman, 2013) was assigned to each PVT mapping unit (Appendix A.1).