Karen Lee Abt

I work primarily in in two areas these days--bioenergy and wildfire economics.

More specifically, I lead a team that develops forecasts of wildland fire suppression expenditures for the USDA Forest Service and for the DOI land management agencies. We develop forecasts for multiple time horizons, running from 10 years ahead (a simple, time series model with good fit but high uncertainty model) to two months ahead (a more complex, climate and weather based model with greater certainty).

In bioenergy economics, I evaluate the effects of various national and international policies on sustainability, climate change, and renewable energy, on the forests of the U.S. South using simulation partial-equilibrium models of timber supply and demand coupled with resource management models to track forest trends.