Modeling forest and range land development in rural locations, with examples from eastern Oregon

The risks that wildfires pose for homes and other structures are a major concern of public lands policy and management. Development of private forest and range lands also can have landscape-level implications for public lands, if accompanying changes in private forest owner behavior effect changes in ecological conditions and processes and in wildfire. We characterized the spatial distribution of forest and range land development in three regions of eastern Oregon, USA, including the Interior Northwest Landscape Analysis System (INLAS) study area, to facilitate examining forest and fuel management alternatives to address wildfire and other forest health issues. We developed empirical models describing the spatial distribution of buildings and the construction of new buildings in each region, as a function of population, existing building densities, slope, elevation, and land-use zoning. We used the empirical models to create geographic information system maps of predicted future building densities on forest and range lands to support vegetation, wildfire, and terrestrial and aquatic habitat analyses. Model predictions suggest that future forest and range land development could be relatively limited within the INLAS study area. The results raise conceptual and methodological questions about how best to anticipate future development in rural locations beyond examining and projecting historical trends alone.