We used a landscape ecology approach to design the forest treatments: prescribed fire to reduce fuel loads and re-establish fire-driven biogeochemical cycles and mechanical thinning to create an uneven-aged forest, both horizontally and vertically. The first step in the overall design looked at landscape attributes such as aspect, topography, soils, current vegetation, and potential natural vegetation to describe the land cover pattern and forest structure. Dominant disturbance processes such as fire behavior and climate were also considered at this step. The second step used this conceptual model of the potential landscape pattern to design the size, location, and date of treatments to meet the needs of the four research studies and the management goals for fuels reduction and silviculture. The third step used models to evaluate treatments through time and assist with the analyses of effects as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Technical and social challenges are discussed regarding the design of an interdisciplinary landscape experiment and the utilization of models at various scales to predict change through time.
