Webinar
Webinar recording.
In this deep dive webinar, Dr. Becky Kerns and collaborating scientists will present and synthesize results from a Joint Fire Science funded project aimed at understanding the current and future Ventenata dubia (ventenata) invasion in the Blue Mountains Ecoregion. Wildfires in 2014 and 2015 in the ecoregion reportedly spread in an unusual fashion owing to this invasive annual grass. Concern was raised that ventenata might be a “game-changer” for wildfire. Results from our studies show that ventenata has ecosystem transformation potential and influences landscape-scale fire across the ecoregion. In this webinar we report these findings and the management implications, as well as place our results in the context of other plant invasion research. The webinar includes 90 minutes of scientific presentations with short Q&A, and ends with a 30-minute wrap up and panel discussion. Talks will adhere to the following agenda to allow attendees to join and leave the meeting for specific talks, if desired.
Webinar recording.
The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the National Weather Service (NWS) are pleased to host two webinars on soil moisture data and applications. The webinars are intended to help NWS operational forecasters, and other weather and climate service providers, to better understand soil moisture monitoring and its practical applications.
This first webinar will provide an overview of soil moisture monitoring and interpretation. It will include a series of brief recorded presentations, followed by live Q&A with the presenters:
“Overview of Soil Moisture Monitoring” – Mike Cosh, USDA Agricultural Research Service
“In situ Soil Moisture Data and Products” – Chris Fiebrich, Oklahoma Mesonet
“Satellite-based Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture” – John Bolten, NASA Goddard
“Model-output Soil Moisture Data and Products” – Marina Skumanich, NIDIS
Webinar recording.
FTDSS is becoming a go-to tool for fuels planning across interagency partners. With its all-access web-based approach, IFTDSS makes fuels management planning accessible to fire practitioners at all levels. From viewing project areas on a user-friendly map interface to completing a full blown Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment, IFTDSS has something for everyone. IFTDSS contains fire behavior models, reference data sets, mapping tools, comparison workflows, and summary reports useful for prescribed fire planning, treatment prioritization, and NEPA analysis and reports. With upwards of 2800 user accounts, IFTDSS is being used across all federal agencies as well as state and private partners, NGOs, and Universities. This webinar will provide an overview of what the application can do as well as some examples of how it is being used in the field.
Webinar recording.
Webinar join links and recordings.
The SCIENCE X webinar series brings together scientists and land management experts from across U.S. Forest Service research stations and beyond to explore the latest science and best practices for addressing large natural resource challenges across the country.
Webinar recording.
This webinar will include presentations and interactive breakout sessions to explore implications and opportunities for forest collaboratives:
Larry Chambers, Change Management and Communication Lead, U.S. Forest Service
Jake Donnay, Director, Legislative Affairs, U.S. Forest Service
Steve Moyer, Vice President of Government Affairs, Trout Unlimited
Bill Imbergamo, Executive Director, Federal Forest Resource Coalition
Webinar join links and recordings.
11-week lecture series Lookout: Envisioning Futures with Wildfire, we’ll scan the horizon for the ideas and stories that can guide us through this critical and disorienting time. We’ve invited speakers who offer perspectives from across the arts, humanities, and environmental sciences to think about questions like: What can we learn about transformation from fire’s destructive and creative force? How should we live differently, both with each other and on the planet, in this era of wildfires? How can we honor fire as an ancient, rejuvenating element while also honoring all that has been lost to wildfire?
This series is hosted by the Spring Creek Project and the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Oregon State University and co-sponsored by OSU’s Center for the Humanities, OSU’s Sustainability Office, OSU’s Arts and Education Complex, and Terrain.org. Additional co-sponsors for individual talks are noted in the schedule below.
The talks in the series will be broadcast live on Zoom Tuesdays at 6 p.m. PST / 8 p.m. CST / 9 p.m. EST from January 4 to March 15. Free and open to everyone.
Webinar recording.
According to the January 18 U.S. Drought Monitor, 99.6% of CA/NV is in drought, with 9.8% in Extreme (D3) or Exceptional (D4) Drought. The area in D3/D4 is down from 69.9% just one month ago, reflecting the barrage of storms that have brought rain and snow to the region since mid-fall. These storms have improved conditions but have not ended the drought. The current drought developed over many months to years and left huge water deficits.
Workshop recordings.
The aim of this workshop is to better understand how NASA and community expertise can be leveraged in the development of systems that monitor, assess, mitigate, and assure safety concerns of dynamic operations in challenging work environments. The primary goals are to:
- Identify and prioritize top safety-oriented risks, gaps in capabilities, and emerging technologies to enhance wildland firefighting for both near-term and mid-term operational concepts
- Engage the stakeholder community in defining emergent safety-oriented roles, responsibilities, and procedures for agents undergoing increasingly complex wildland firefighting operations in information-rich but uncertain environments
Webinar recording.
It seems the effects of climate change were all too clear in 2021. Yet, we know more change is expected. When trying to adapt to a changing climate, with all the inherent uncertainties about how the future may play out, resource managers often turn to scenario planning as a tool. Managers use scenario planning to explore plausible ways the climate may change, allowing them to work with climate change uncertainty rather than being paralyzed by it. Once identified, scenarios of the future are used to develop proactive measures to prepare for and adapt to scenarios of change.
A key part of scenario planning is generating a list of potential future climates we may deal with. These ‘climate futures’ serve as the foundation of each scenario explored in the planning process. For example, managers consider how they would respond to a warm, wet versus a hot, dry future. This webinar will describe and compare three approaches to generate the climate futures that feed into the scenario planning process. In doing so, this work identifies an approach to developing climate futures that captures a broad range of climate conditions (a key ingredient to developing scenarios) across both near and long-term planning horizons.