A Landscape Analysis Plan1 

Nancy E. Fleenor2 

Abstract 

A Landscape Analysis Plan (LAP) sets out broad guidelines for project development 

within boundaries of the Kings River Sustainable Forest Ecosystems Project. The plan 

must be a dynamic, living document, subject to change as new information arises over the 

course of this very long-term project (several decades). Two watersheds, each of 32,000 

acres, were dedicated to the effort by the Kings River Ranger District of the Sierra 

National Forest. Several documents were used to prepare a draft LAP in 1995. Although 

the plan lays out general guidelines for managing both watersheds, all land and forest 

treatments implemented under the LAP still require preparation of appropriate 

documents under the National Environmental Policy Act, which are open to public 

comment and appeal. Adaptive management is an overriding concept, with the basic 

intent being to learn from all individual projects and to adjust management directions 

accordingly. The existing draft LAP is presently under revision in response to new 

information from numerous discussions during field tours, new science presented in a 

report to Congress from the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, and new science and 

management guidelines being developed by the Sierra Nevada Conservation Framework 

(an effort to produce an Environmental Impact Statement to guide the management of 11 

National Forests in the Sierra Nevada). 

Why a Landscape Analysis Plan? 

A Landscape Analysis Plan (LAP) forms a link between national forest plans 

prepared under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976 and 

specific projects that implement those plans in compliance with the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. It has developed in response to the 

USDA Forest Service’s reorientation to ecosystem management, under direction 

from Jack Ward Thomas, former Chief of the Forest Service. The Sierra National 

Forest instituted LAPs as a step to provide assessments at a landscape scale, 

tiering off the Pacific Southwest Region’s (Region 5’s) definition of a landscape 

as “An area of interacting ecosystems where patterns are repeated because of 

geology, landform, soils, climate, biota, and human influences throughout the 

area. The size, shape, and patterns of landscapes are determined by interacting 

ecosystems” (Manley and others 1995: p. 206). The LAP pertains to a land area 

considerably smaller than that of the National Forest but considerably larger 

than that of an individual project. As such, it can provide “A planning schedule 

that documents existing conditions, desired conditions, and projects that will 

achieve desired conditions” within boundaries of the defined landscape (Manley 

and others 1995, p. 206). 

In developing the LAP, we have solicited comments from within the Forest 

Service and from the public. In the case of the Kings River Sustainable Forest 

1 An abbreviated version of this 

paper was presented at the 

Symposium on the Kings River 

Sustainable Forest Ecosystems 

Project: Progress and Current 

Status, January 26, 1998, Clovis, 

California. 

2 	Administrative Study Team 

Leader, Kings River Ranger 

District, Sierra National Forest, 

USDA Forest Service, P.O. Box 

559, Prather, CA 93651. 

USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-183. 2002. 13 
Fleenor A Landscape Analysis Plan 

Ecosystems Project, it serves as a guide for project development. Its main 

objectives are: 

• To blend social, physical, economic, and biological needs through 

ecosystem analysis and public collaboration to assure productive and 

healthy forest ecosystems. 

• To understand forest landscapes as ecological systems. 

• To assure consideration of the implications of our actions in terms of 

those ecological systems. 

• To interpret the Sierra National Forest’s Land and Resource Management 

Plan (LRMP) (USDA 1992) by documenting our collective vision of the 

desired condition of the landscape and to help communicate it to others. 

• To guide us in meeting the objectives of the LRMP. 

Because several decades will be needed to attain the desired condition of the 

watersheds in the project and some effects will be evident sooner than others, the 

LAP must be a living document. It will be adapted and amended as new 

information emerges, based on its application in the field. 

Development of the Landscape Analysis Plan 

Soon after the Kings River Sustainable Forest Ecosystems Project received 

support from the Forest Service’s Region 5 and Pacific Southwest Research 

Station, and was formally approved by the Supervisor of the Sierra National 

Forest, the Kings River Ranger District established an Interdisciplinary Team of 

specialists—team leader, silviculturist, wildlife biologist, hydrologist, soil 

scientist, heritage resource specialist, recreation specialist, and fire/fuels 

specialist—with the task of preparing a LAP for the project area. Two major 

watersheds are included: Dinkey Creek, about 32,000 acres, and Big Creek, also 

about 32,000 acres (fig. 1). A draft LAP was completed in 1995, following 

guidelines in Region 5’s draft “Ecosystem Management Guidebook,” later 

completed under a new title (Manley and others 1995). This guidebook was our 

primary source for developing the LAP. The Plan had to be consistent with 

desired conditions for the Sierra National Forest, as described in the Forest’s 

LRMP (USDA 1992) and as amended by the California Spotted Owl 

Environmental Assessment (USDA 1993) and the Standards and Guides for 

Grazing (USDA 1995a). Finally, input from other specialists in range, geology, 

fisheries, landscape architecture, botany, engineering (transportation and 

logging), pathology, and entomology contributed to the analysis effort on an asneeded basis, and comments were solicited from the public and from scientists at 

the Pacific Southwest Research Station’s laboratory in Fresno. 

In addition, the Interdisciplinary Team followed a process developed for 

watershed analysis in the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region (Region 6), 

under the President’s Pacific Northwest Plan. This prescribes the following, 

eight-step process (Furniss and McCammon 1993): 

• Identify issues, describe desired conditions, and formulate key questions. 

• Identify key processes, functions, and conditions. 

• Stratify the watershed. 

• Assemble analytical information needed to address the key questions. 

• Describe past and current conditions. 

• Describe condition trends and predict effects of future land management. 

• Interpret, integrate, and present findings. 

• Manage information, monitor, and revise strategies (adaptive 

management). 

14 USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-183. 2002. 
A Landscape Analysis Plan 

�

Sierra National Forest 

Sierra National Forest 

Study Area 

Dinkey Creek Watershed 

Big Creek Watershed 

Fleenor 

Figure 1—The Kings River 

administrative study area in the 

Sierra National Forest in central 

California includes the 64,000-acre 

Big Creek and Dinkey Creek 

watersheds (indicated by shading). 

To attain desired conditions, the Sierra National Forest’s LRMP relies heavily 

on zoning to allocate lands among competing resource objectives and even-aged 

forest management prescriptions. The two forest management systems proposed 

for study in the Kings River Project, however, reduce reliance on forest zoning, 

emphasize attainment of multi-resource objectives on more homogeneous areas 

in each watershed, and rely heavily on the uneven-aged management system to 

program vegetation treatments. Additional guidance and concepts for this 

approach were taken from Chapel (1990), Chapel and others (1992), Fiske and 

others (1993), and USDA (1994). 

Although the plan lays out general guidelines for managing both watersheds 

(Verner and Smith, in this volume) and includes “A Landscape Management 

Implementation Schedule,” all land and forest treatments implemented under 

the LAP still require the preparation of appropriate NEPA documents (Biological 

Evaluations, Biological Assessments, and Environmental Assessments or 

Environmental Impact Statements). These, of course, require full public 

disclosure and opportunities for public comment and appeal. 

Adaptive management is an overriding concept for the Kings River Project. 

The basic intent, of course, is to learn from all individual projects and to adjust 

management directions accordingly. This is accomplished through continual 

interaction among management personnel of the Sierra National Forest, the 

Kings River Ranger District, and scientists from the Pacific Southwest Research 

Station’s laboratory in Fresno. Scientists are studying various components and 

functions of the affected forest ecosystems (Verner and Smith, in this volume) to 

gain an understanding of the effects of treatments over the long-term (10-50 

years). In addition, to discuss results to date, all of these personnel, together with 

members of the interested public and scientists and managers from other entities, 

annually participate in several field tours to treatment areas within the two 

watersheds. These sessions have proven to be extremely productive for the 

sharing of ideas and evaluating results of forest management activities intended 

to attain desired conditions for various resources—watersheds, forest health, 

wildlife habitat, fuel loading, and others. Field tours of the first two uneven-aged 

USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-183. 2002. 15 
Fleenor A Landscape Analysis Plan 

projects, for example, raised concerns among scientists and members of the 

public about tree size-class distributions and vertical diversity of the tree canopy 

resulting from the first applications of small-group selection (Smith and Exline, 

in this volume). This led to some thinking about the silvicultural prescriptions 

applied in the first projects and is expected to result in some revision and a 

different approach for some future projects. In effect, then, “adaptive 

management” of some sort is occurring on the ground, as we move forward. 

The Current Situation 

A primary objective of the LAP is that forest management in the Kings River 

Project area will remain dynamic as forest managers, scientists, and the public 

learn how to better sustain forest ecosystems. As new information comes in from 

the several research projects underway in the Project area (Verner and Smith, in 

this volume), it can be incorporated quickly into subsequent forest treatment 

projects. The draft LAP (USDA 1995b) is now under revision to incorporate such 

sources of new information. This includes input from the numerous discussions 

during field tours, new science presented in the report to Congress from the 

Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP 1996a, b, c, and d), and new science and 

management guidelines being developed by the Sierra Nevada Conservation 

Framework (the current effort to produce an Environmental Impact Statement to 

guide management of 11 National Forests in the Sierra Nevada). 

Partnerships and Collaboration 

The collaborative effort among researchers, interested citizens, tribal 

governments, forest managers, university partners, and industry representatives 

has developed into a synergistic approach for solving problems of natural 

resource management. The effort is intense and challenging as more species and 

ecological processes are recognized as being at risk, and the project is attracting 

more collaboration and partnerships. 

Acknowledgments 

I thank Alan M. Quan and Mark T. Smith for constructive reviews of a draft of 

this paper. 

References 

Chapel, Mike. 1990. Sustainable resource management for forest landscapes: a proposal. Nevada 

City, CA: Tahoe National Forest, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 6 p. 

[Unpublished internal report.] 

Chapel, Mike; Carlson, Ann; Craig, Diana; Flaherty, Terry; Marshall, Chris; Reynolds, Mark; Pratt, 

Dave; Pyshora, Leo; Tanguay, Steve; Thompson, Wendy. 1992. Recommendations for managing 

late-seral-stage forest and riparian habitats on the Tahoe National Forest. Nevada City, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Region, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 39 p. 

Fiske, John N.; Husari, Susan J.; Ratcliff, Tom; Rogers, Robert R.; Smith, Mark T. 1993. Effects of a 

group selection strategy for the Sierra Nevada mixed conifer: report of a Regional ad hoc 

team. San Francisco, CA: Pacific Southwest Region, Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture; 78 p. [Unpublished internal report.] 

Furniss, Mike; McCammon, Bruce. 1993. A federal agency guide for pilot watershed analysis, 

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Schuyler, John C. Skinner, Michael J. 1995. Sustaining ecosystems: a conceptual framework. R5-

EM-TP-001. San Francisco, CA: Pacific Southwest Region, Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture; 216 p. 

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A Landscape Analysis Plan 

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ecosystem approach). (Draft alternatives, version dated 6/13/94.) San Francisco, CA: Pacific 

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