Kathryn G. Arano

Modeling Landowner Participation in a Proposed Reforestation Loan Program

The absence of available credit to finance reforestation investments among NIPF landowners has been one of the contributing reasons why landowners do not reforest after harvest. Financial assistance programs are therefore a solution to initiating reforestation investments. However, previous studies indicate many landowners are not actively participating in existing government assistance programs. This paper examines reforestation loans as an alternative financial assistance program. Landowner participation in a proposed reforestation loan program is modeled using logistic regression. Results indicate that landowner participation in the program is influenced by ownership size, socio-demographic characteristics, and availability of other forestry incentive and assistance programs.

Property Taxes and Forests in West Virginia: A Historical Review

Managed Timberland Tax Incentive Program (Managed Timberland), the program which authorizes preferential property taxation of forest land in West Virginia, was created in anticipation of expected drastic changes in property assessment values when the state ordered a reassessment to correct a long-standing underassessment problem. Since the enactment of Managed Timberland no detailed research has been conducted to determine the benefits of the policy to the state or to private forest landowners. Managed Timberland has low enrollment rates and may be an unfair shift of the tax burden to non-forest owners. A detailed study of Managed Timberland was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the policy. This study employs a historical review to examine the implication of past tax policies and provide a context and direction for future research and policy recommendations. The historical review reveals that in West Virginia, a preferential tax program for forests is desirable, but requires changes due to a history of inefficient and unfairly distributed property taxes and inadequate benefits from Managed Timberland to forest landowners. Simplification of forest tax policies would make these policies more transparent and understandable to landowners and easier for local tax authorities to administer. In addition, landowners may be more inclined to participate in preferential forest tax programs if program outreach and reward systems were more in keeping with known landowner values and beliefs.

Phenology of trees and urbanization: a comparative study between New York City and Ithaca, New York

The ‘global warming’ effect has been found to influence vegetation phenological processes. Heat island phenomenon associated with urbanized area presents a unique place to investigate its local warming effects. This study compares the date of budburst (DOBB) of street London plane trees (Platanus × acerifolia) between highly urbanized New York City (NYC) and relatively less urbanized Ithaca, New York in 2007 and 2008. It also linked DOBB with land surface temperature and fractional vegetation cover derived from Landsat satellite images. The DOBB in NYC and Ithaca differed significantly as budburst occurred 3 and 4 days earlier in NYC than in Ithaca in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The intensity of the heat island effect and its effect on tree phenology were greater in NYC. Results show that DOBB can be explained by temperature, and findings could be extrapolated to make inferences on the potential impact of global warming on vegetation communities.