Third
Progress Report
July 1989 - June 1990
University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
College of Natural Resources, Berkeley
Department of Forestry & Resource Management
State of California
Resources Agency
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
December 1990
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GOAL 3: Show Consequences of Hardwood Range Conversion
Summary of Problem: Preliminary information indicates that in many counties, conversions of hardwood rangeland to intensive agriculture, residential, and commercial development are the most likely source of adverse impacts on fire protection, soil erosion, wildlife habitat, forage and wood availability. Local governments (county or city) establish their own planning policies for controlling the extent and rate of encroachment. Often this is done without adequate professional wildland expertise in forestry, range, and wildlife management.
CDF-Funded Land Use Research:
CDF has funded a series of studies that examine how the economic, legal and institutional environment surrounding hardwood rangelands effects land management and land use decisions of landowners and counties. In A Model of Economic Forces Affecting California’s Hardwood Resources: Policy and Monitoring Implications, Doak and Stewart indicate how energy prices and ranch cash needs drove clearing of hardwoods up until the late 1970s, but show that parcelization and conversion to rural residences is now the major threat to hardwood rangeland. They provide recommendations on several policy directions to reduce the extensive clearing of oaks in that environment. From their analysis of the legal and institutional environment (The Legal Environment for Hardwood Land Ownerships in California), Doak et al. (1988) conclude that protection of the hardwood resources, particularly from conversion, requires collaboration between the state-level agencies of CDF and the Board of Forestry and county and municipal governments.
Additional research projects are attempting to develop the means that would support more effective collaboration between governments and with landowners. One project is developing criteria that will allow planners to designate certain areas as “critical areas” on the basis of both their resource endowment and the threats to their integrity. Another project is developing a publication for county planning staff that indicates how hardwood rangelands can be conserved through planning activities. A third project investigates the means by which markets for environmental service could be used to promote conservation.
Education and Applied Research Results on Woodland Conversion
Land use planning issues in hardwood rangelands, particularly those addressable by the IHRMP, continue to arise from the rate of land development in California. The unprecedented rate of rural land conversion has created an environment where untested concepts become conventional wisdom and issues evolve more rapidly than resolutions. Conversions have inundated county administrators and planning personnel, and have brought many new interest groups into the planning process. Despite a softening of California’s real estate market, the strength of our economy relative to other states and the lure of suburban and rural living will pressure hardwood range management into the foreseeable future.
IHRMP goals in the area continue to be: (1) the development of predictive data on how woodlands are lost or altered during land conversions, (2) the development of land management planning techniques which allow for population and economic growth while maintaining the woodland resources demanded by the public, and (3) the extension of this information to land use planners, managers, and administrators. The IHRMP research need is to define the processes of woodland conversions and to develop land use models which satisfy development interests while maintaining woodland resources. Other IHRMP research areas, such as oak woodland restoration, integrate with this land use research. The extension need is to educate land use planners about the value of woodlands, to develop case histories and databases on land development projects, and to provide research-based information on options and alternatives in land use planning.
Suburbanization and parcelization are the primary targets of IHRMP efforts in land use planning. Suburbanization often results in the complete loss of woodlands, although community groups have begun to pressure county planners and landscape architects to develop plans that maintain existing woodlands. County planners are increasingly pressured to develop open space ordinances, wildlife management plans, and wildland parks. IHRMP work with small landowners and land stewardship dovetail with land use planning efforts, providing information to land purchasers as well as land developers.
Hardwood conversion issues are part of a larger topic of land management at the wildland/urban interface. Rapid land development has created a mixture of suburban and natural resource problems, with no clear administrative structure for conflict resolution. County and private planners are in the position of managing natural resources, while resources agencies are increasingly managing suburban problems such as fire protection, increased demands for recreation, capital facilities planning, and the policing and protection of parks. There is a tremendous need to educate county planners and administrators on resource management and to educate resource managers on suburban issues.
IHRMP networking among professionals in suburban and resource management has been one approach to administration of the wildland/urban interface issues. Another approach, primarily in urbanized areas, has been countywide conservation planning to separate preserved lands from developable lands. Not all counties are subject to rapid urbanization, and a number of other efforts have been undertaken by county planners, including woodland restoration as mitigation for land development and tree cutting ordinances. Counties rarely have the expertise to create either conservation plans or parcel-specific mitigations, and the IHRMP continues to work with these planners to provide research-based information.
Registered parcel owners of unincorporated land in Yolo County containing groves of valley oaks were surveyed to collect information on their attitudes and concerns relating to valley oak management. Fifty percent of the respondents returned the survey. The information, to be published in an upcoming issue of California Agriculture, may be used in refining a proposed agricultural and residential valley oak ordinance to better fit the needs of the county and its residents.
To reach owners in the rapidly developing rural-urban interface area in the oak woodlands, three workshops were held in central Sierra Nevada foothill counties, reaching over 350 landowners. Owners were provided information on topics such as oak tree conservation, tree health around structures, landscaping around oaks, wildfire protection around homes, and small pasture management.
A very successful program was held in Sonoma County in the fall of 1989
Oak trees enhance the value of homes. |
Urbanization is the leading source of hardwood rangeland loss. |
called “A Day for the Oaks”. This program attracted a variety of professional resource managers who work in urbanizing areas of hardwood rangelands, as well as planners, homeowners, developers, and educators.Over 250 people attended this event, and evaluations of the audience indicate that more attention to root protection and care to develop compatible landscaping plans will be applied by attendees.
The popular Living Among the Oaks publication continues to be a best seller for owners in urban interface areas. Over 30,000 copies of the publication have been distributed to date. Newspaper articles on oak conservation issues have been the major source of publicity for this publication in the past year. Two new developments of over 800 units in oak covered areas utilized Living Among the Oaks as part of the covenants, codes and restrictions (CC&R’s) for the homeowners, which essentially attach the management and landscaping suggestions for maintaining oak tree health in subdivisions as a lien on the property.
Trends and Future Needs
The IHRMP will intensify its efforts in this area in the upcoming several years. The draft of a new publication entitled, A Planners Guide to Managing California’s Hardwood Rangelands, has been completed, with a final version to be ready this winter. This publication provides practical information about how county and city planners, as well as developers, landscape architects, arborists, and others can provide for conservation of critical hardwood rangeland habitat. Ideas on protecting critical areas will be presented, as well as background information on some of the important characteristics of hardwood rangelands. An aggressive series of educational programs will be held throughout the state to present this information, and the response to the concepts presented will be evaluated.
Wildlife Corridor Research and Extension Protect
The loss of wildland areas has focused public attention on land development in southern California. Wildland areas which were too vast for commodity value as late as the 1950s have receded into islands of natural areas scattered across an urban landscape. The sense of loss engendered by land conversion has resulted in public demands for the amenity values of these remaining natural areas and for comprehensive planning for wildlife protection, vegetation management, recreation, and viewspace.
Habitat Conservation Plans (referred to as HCPs) have become the management tool of choice for separating developable lands from natural areas with sensitive resources. These plans have grown out of the frustration of land developers at the pace of environmental review, public skepticism of parcel-by-parcel management of cumulative habitat losses, and tendency of natural area issues to cross jurisdictional and administrative boundaries.
A new research and extension program, supported by the County of Riverside, evaluates the effect of different kinds of land use on wildlife occurrence in a 40,000-acre area of hardwood rangelands. Study scope and area boundaries were created through a series of meetings with elected officials, interest groups, and agencies. Riverside County became the lead agency; however, the popularity of the project garnered the unsolicited support of seven cities surrounding the study area. San Bernardino County has joined the study and will provide additional support to extend the study of wildlife habitats and sensitive species in hardwood rangelands to that county. A combined group of Citizen and government groups functions as the advisory council for the project, and will hopefully function as a policy-developing body in the future. The research component of this project will predict the impacts to wildlife associated with a range of County policies within the study area. The extension component (to date) has been to create an ad hoc committee and network of administrators and to support a grassroots program in wildlife awareness for rural residents of the study area. The ultimate extension role in this study will be to provide information to an Open Space Committee on the effect of their actions on wildlife. Secondary extension activities will be to provide public education meetings on the wildlife of the area.
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Modeling Land Use Change
Geographic information system (GIS) technology can be used to develop spatial models for projecting future development patterns. The map on the following page shows the results of a simplified model to demonstrate a projection methodology for Nevada county.
The CDF/FRRAP GIS was used to overlay a 500-acre grid cell layer with census tract data, assessor data summarized by map book, ownership, and road density. Each polygon generated from the overlay process can be characterized by factors such as population density, average parcel size, average parcel turnover rate, proportion of Land in Timberland Production Zones (TPZ), ownership, road density, and employment in resource-based industries. For the demonstration model, individual polygons were assigned a development class according to road density. Development classes range from wildlands with few improved roads (loss than 1 meter per hectare) to urban areas with high road densities (over 50 meters per hectare).
The projection methodology defined rules for how a polygon changes development class over time based on four factors; the current development class of the polygon, the recent turnover rate of parcels in the polygon, whether the polygon is in public ownership, and whether the polygon is within a zone of influence. For example, polygons currently classified as wildlands generally progress very slowly to the urban class. Areas with a recent history of owner turnover might be expected to move to higher development classes. Publicly owned lands will generally be expected to experience a lower degree of development relative to privately owned lands. Zones of influence, areas that are likely to experience development pressures due to proximity to existing population or economic centers, were generated. Areas within these zones generally experience more rapid development relative to other areas.
As the model is developed further, polygon classification and projection rules will be based on more complex relations that can be constructed from the above data sources, as well as topography, hydrology, and vegetation data. Zones of influence might be more accurately described using decay functions to simulate declining influence with distance from the center.
Once a reasonable model is developed, alternative scenarios can be projected to display the results of various development strategies, economic and demographic forecasts, local planning efforts, or public policies. Critical factors to consider in the scenario building process might include county zoning laws, transportation costs to major employment centers, immigration of retirees, viability of resource-based industries in the area, and transplanted industries from other areas.
The model can also be linked to existing models to estimate impacts on resource management activities, commodity production from wildlands, wildlife habitat, water yield and quality, and fire protection strategies.
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 Current and Future Development
Patterns for Nevada County
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