Monitoring of Best Management Practices

UK is providing and supervising 2 field crews that are collecting information on the implementation of best management practices to protect water quality during and after timber harvesting operations. The field crews are taking data on 100 timber harvesting sites on private forest land in Kentucky. UK will be summarizing and manipulating a portion of the data for the Kentucky Division of Forestry and will be subjecting a portion of the data to statistical analysis for the purpose of satisfying research objectives that we have. Specifically, UK initiated a study in 1997-98 of timber harvesting sites looking at the implementation practices completed by loggers to protect water quality. Since that time UK has been involved in training loggers in these practices and providing technical guidelines to help them Implement these practices. The Kentucky Division ( Forestry independently became interested in taking a look at the implementation of these practices as a part of their mandate to protect the forests of Kentucky. Based on their interest they unilaterally developed a US EPA proposal to look at the use of these practices. After they obtained the funding they contacted me to determine if I was interested in partnering with them to obtain the field data and provide assistance in analysis. I indicated that this would provide a great opportunity for us to determine if our education programs have had impact. They agreed and asked us to conduct the field surveys and we could both use the data. The Kentucky Division of Forestry is using aerial detection to systematically identify timber harvesting sites and providing aerial data on these sites. UK is completing the field survey of the sites and analyzing the data (as indicated).