The Nature Conservancy - James L. Smith, Ph. D. LANDFIRE Project Manager, Global Fire Initiative

People

James L. Smith, Ph.D.
LANDFIRE Project Manager, Global Fire Initiative

Contact Information
1822 Swiss Oaks Street
Jacksonville, FL 32259

Phone: 904-327-0055
E-mail: jim_smith@tnc.org

Brief Biography
Jim Smith is The Nature Conservancy's LANDFIRE project manager. LANDFIRE is a collaborative 5 year project with the USFS and DOI aimed at developing geospatial data for fire regime restoration, fire management and conservation planning, and hazardous fuels reduction using a consistent and repeatable methodology nationwide. Jim is responsible for managing the various project budgets, representing The Nature Conservancy at leadership and professional meetings, developing LANDFIRE reports, and coordinating 10 LANDFIRE application projects. Jim also serves as the Modeling Lead for the Southern Appalachian region.

Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, Jim was the Forestry, Fire and Ecosystem Management Domain Manager for Space Imaging, Manager of Forestry Information Systems for International Paper Company and Champion International Corporation, Manager of GIS and Remote Sensing for Canal Forest Industries, and Associate Professor in the Department of Forestry at Virginia Tech.

Professional Awards
2002 ESRI Special Achievement in GIS Award (GENiSYS Team)
1998 Award of Appreciation, Spatial Accuracy Assessment in Natural Resource and Environmental Sciences
1994 Certificate of Appreciation, International Union of Forestry Research Organizations
1993 John I. Davidson Award for Practical Papers, ASPRS
1992 Certificate of Appreciation, Society of American Foresters
1990 University Certificate of Teaching Excellence, Virginia Tech
1990 Certificate of Merit, Society of American Foresters

Professional Memberships
Society of American Foresters
American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

Education
Ph.D. Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing 1981, Virginia Tech
M.S. Forest Biometrics 1979, University of Georgia
B.S. Forest Resources, 1976, University of Georgia
A.A. Liberal Arts 1974, Albany Junior College

Selected Publications
Smith, J.L. (with W. Tompkins). 2004. Wildland Fire Risk Assessment System. Forest Landowner. Vol 63 (1): 44-46.

Smith, J.L. and D. Buckley. 2004. A Scaleable Fire Risk Assessment. Imaging Notes, Winter 2004 .

Huber, G., J. Smith and D. Buckley. 2003. Training Ground: 3D Visualization Helps the U.S. Army Maintain a 76,000 Acre Sustainable Training Environment at Ft. AP Hill. Imaging Notes, Winter 2003. pp. 22-23.

Smith, J.L., M. Clutter, B. Keefer, S. Ma. 2003 Special Commentary: The Future of Digital Remote Sensing for Production Forestry Organizations. Forest Science 49(3):455-456.

Smith, J.L. and S. P. Prisley. 2000. Geospatial Information Needs in Forest Industry. 2nd International Conference on Geospatial Needs in Agriculture and Forestry, Orlando, FL. Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. pp. I31-I37.

Smith, J.L. and S.P. Prisley. 1999. Barriers to Institutionalizing Digital Remote Sensing in Production Forestry Organizations. National Convention of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Portland, OR.

Bolstad, P.V. and J.L. Smith. 1992. Errors in GIS. Journal of Forestry 90(11): 21-29. (Reprinted in Water Resource Engineering Applications of GIS, Lewis Publishers).

Smith, J.L., T.G. Gregoire and J.A. Logan. 1992. Using aerial photography and GIS to develop databases for pesticide evaluations. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 58(9): 1447-1452.

Keefer, B. J. and J. L. Smith. 1991. Modeling and evaluating the effects of stream mode digitizing errors on map variables. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 57(7): 957-963.

Prisley, S., T. Gregoire and J. Smith. 1989. The mean and variance of area estimates computed in an arc-node geographic information system. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 55(11):1601-1612 (special issue on Geographic Information Systems).