Mission 

The mission of the Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center (EFETAC) is to generate knowledge and tools needed to anticipate and respond to environmental threats. The most serious threats to forests, and the benefits they provide, inevitably involve complex factors interacting at multiple scales. EFETAC's challenge is to maintain a holistic and integrated research program to tackle these complex issues. EFETAC is further charged to deliver knowledge to forest landowners, managers, and scientists in a timely, useful, and user-friendly manner. The Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center's mission and governance are more completely described in its original 2005 charter. 

Organization 

EFETAC comprises three teams, each with regional, national, and international responsibilities. The Threat Assessment team emphasizes integrated approaches to detecting, predicting, and assessing threats to forest health; the Southern Global Change Program (SGCP) team develops conceptual and functional bases for understanding and mitigating forest ecosystem responses to climate change; and the National Forest Health Monitoring Research team develops new monitoring protocols and analytical tools in addition to performing national scale analyses and reports on the health and sustainability of the Nation’s forests. EFETAC works closely with its counterpart center in Prineville, Oregon, the Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center (WWETAC), coordinating approaches to common problems. EFETAC differs from WWETAC in its greater focus on private lands and a greater emphasis on hardwoods.

Problem Areas

Problem 1. Forest Health Monitoring Research

Problem 2. Forest Ecosystem Responses to Global Change 

Problem 3. Impacts of Biotic Invasion, Other Stresses, and Their Interactions

Problem 4. Integrated Risk Assessment

Problem 5. Collaborative Science Delivery Efforts

Download EFETAC Research Work Unit Charter