Forest Management and Washington State’s Forested Wetlands: Assessing Forest Harvest Patterns across Ownership Types in the Hoh Watershed

Abstract

Washington State’s forested wetlands are essential sources of environmental provisioning, providing habitat support, water purification, and carbon sequestration. These ecosystems are managed under a combination of federal, state and tribal regulatory frameworks. However, the interaction between these wetlands and forest management policies remains a complex concern, as wetlands continue to experience uneven protection and their delineations are sometimes disputed among agencies. Historically, limitations in wetland mapping accuracy have constrained investigations into this relationship. This research leverages recent methodological advancements, including the Landsat-based detection of Trends in Disturbance and Recovery (LandTrendr) algorithm and the Wetland Intrinsic Potential (WIP) tool, to quantify temporal anthropogenic disturbance patterns within forested wetlands from 1974 to 2022 and to explore whether these patterns can be meaningfully aligned with regulatory change over time.The primary contribution of this research lies in the development and application of a spatially explicit disturbance analysis framework capable of quantifying long-term trends in forested wetlands. By contrast, the policy component remains preliminary and exploratory, serving as an initial attempt to assess whether regulatory change can be systematically examined alongside landscape-level disturbance dynamics. While causal attribution cannot be established, the analysis identifies consistent variation in disturbance patterns across ownership types, suggesting that ownership context warrants further investigation as a potentially influential factor. Translating ecological data into policy-relevant insights is inherently complex, especially when scientific evidence must be aligned with legislative and administrative frameworks. Future research may build upon this disturbance analysis framework to more rigorously evaluate policy influences across different regions and governance contexts.