Susan Hummel

Assessing natural hazards in forestry for risk management: a review

We address the problem of how to integrate risk assessment into forest management and therefore provide a comprehensive review of recent and past literature on risk analysis and modeling and, moreover, an evaluation and summary on these papers. We provide a general scheme on how to integrate concepts of risk into forest management decisions. After an overview of the risk management process and the main hazards in forests (storm, snow, insects, fire), the paper focuses on the principal methods used to assess risks from these hazards for commercial forestry. We review mechanistic models, empirical models, and expert systems and consider the needs for different spatial scales of risk assessment, from the regional to the single-tree level. In addition to natural hazards and their secondary effects, we deal with economic aspects of risk analysis. Monte Carlo simulations to deal with volatile timber prices and ways to include risk in classical Faustmann approaches are briefly discussed along with the integration of portfolio theory into forest management decision making and attitude toward risk. Special attention is paid to the implications for risk modeling under climate change.

Conserving biodiversity using risk management: hoax or hope.

Biodiversity has been called a form of ecosystem insurance. According to the “insurance hypothesis”, the presence of many species protects against system decline, because builtin redundancies guarantee that some species will maintain key functions even if others fail. The hypothesis might have merit, but calling it “insurance” promotes an ambiguous understanding of risk management strategies and underlying theories of risk. Instead, such redundancy suggests a strategy of diversification. A clearer understanding of risk includes comprehending the important distinction between risk assessment and risk management, acknowledging the existence of undiversifiable risk, and recognizing that risk and uncertainty are not synonymous. A better grasp of risk management will help anyone interested in assessing the merits of different biodiversity conservation strategies. At stake is the adequacy of conservation strategies for mitigating human-caused biodiversity losses.

Does the Social Capital in Networks of “Fish and Fire” Scientists and Managers Suggest Learning?

Patterns of social interaction influence how knowledge is generated, communicated, and applied. Theories of social capital and organizational learning suggest that interactions within disciplinary or functional groups foster communication of knowledge, whereas interactions across groups foster generation of new knowledge. We used social network analysis to examine patterns of social interaction reported in survey data from scientists and managers who work on fish and fire issues. We found that few fish and fire scientists and managers interact with one another, suggesting low bridging social capital and thus, limited opportunity for generation of new knowledge. We also found that although interaction occurs among scientists—suggesting modest bonding social capital—few managers interact with other managers, indicating limited opportunity for communication of scientific knowledge for the purposes of application. We discuss constraints and opportunities for organizational learning evident in these patterns of social interaction among fish and fire scientists and managers.