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Drawing on recent syntheses of the scientific evidence, this paper examines “myths” commonly used to
oppose climate- and wildfire-adaptation of fire-prone forests. We use an established framework
designed to counter science denial by recognizing the fallacy for each myth. Fallacies are false
arguments; there are several kinds of fallacies, including cherry picking (selecting only a portion of
facts to support a conclusion), false dichotomies or oversimplification (claiming only two possible
outcomes), circular arguments, or straw man (misdirection) arguments. Learning to recognize
logical fallacies and other characteristics of science denial is an essential component of any
assessment of arguments for and against proposed actions
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Study found that expected sediment and phosphorus loads were lower under the scenario that emphasized thinning, whereas scenarios that increased prescribed burning resulted in loads that were comparable to scenarios that involved less treatment. These results reflect the finding from the WEPP analysis that prescribed burning is expected to reduce ground cover more than is thinning. Our analysis supports efforts to increase fuel reduction treatments to mitigate future wildfires, but it also suggests that preventative treatments may not avoid a long-term decline in water quality as wildfires increase with climate change.
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Results suggest that dry forest species are undergoing an active range shift driven by both changing recruitment and mortality, and that increasing temperatures and drought threaten the long-term viability of many of these species in their current range. While four of the five species examined were experiencing some declines, Pinus edulis is currently most vulnerable. Management actions such as reducing tree density may be able to mitigate some of these impacts. The framework we present to estimate range-wide demographic rates can be applied to other species to determine where range contractions are most likely.
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Reports from the early 1900s, along with paleo- and dendro-ecological records, indicate similar and potentially even larger wildfires over the past millennium, many of which shared similar seasonality (late August/early September), weather conditions, and even geographic locations. Consistent with the largest historical fires, strong east winds and anomalously dry conditions drove the rapid spread of high-severity wildfire in 2020. We found minimal difference in burn severity among stand structural types related to previous management in the 2020 fires. Adaptation strategies for similar fires in the future could benefit by focusing on ignition prevention, fire suppression, and community preparedness, as opposed to fuel treatments that are unlikely to mitigate fire severity during extreme weather. While scientific uncertainties remain regarding the nature of infrequent, high-severity fires in westside forests, particularly under climate change, adapting to their future occurrence will require different strategies than those in interior, dry forests.
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This study used a coupled ecohydrologic and fire regime model to examine how climate change and CO2 scenarios influence fire regimes. In this semiarid watershed, we found an increase in burned area and burn probability in the mid-21st century (2040s) as the CO2 fertilization effect on vegetation productivity outstripped the effects of climate change-induced fuel decreases, resulting in greater fuel loading. However, by the late-21st century (2070s), climatic warming dominated over CO2 fertilization, thus reducing fuel loading and burned area. Fire regimes were shown to shift from flammability- to fuel-limited or become increasingly fuel-limited in response to climate change. We identified a metric to identify when fire regimes shift from flammability- to fuel-limited: the ratio of the change in fuel loading to the change in its aridity. The threshold value for which this metric indicates a flammability versus fuel-limited regime differed between grasses and woody species but remained stationary over time. Our results suggest that identifying these thresholds in other systems requires narrowing uncertainty in exogenous drivers, such as future precipitation patterns and CO2 effects on vegetation.
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Tree planting has long been promoted to avert climate change and has received renewed impetus in recent years with the Bonn Challenge and related forest restoration initiatives guided by the forest and landscape restoration (FLR) framework. Much of the focus for reforestation and afforestation is on developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America, where large areas of rangelands in drylands and grassy biomes are portrayed as “degraded,” “unused,” and in need of more trees. This perception is rooted in persistent theories on forests and desertification that widely shaped colonial policy and practice and remain influential in today’s science-policy frameworks. From a rangelands perspective, the global FLR thrust raises two main concerns. First, inappropriate understandings of the ecology of drylands and grassy biomes encourage afforestation, grazing restriction and fire suppression, with negative impacts on hydrology, carbon storage, biodiversity, livestock production and pastoral livelihoods. Second, their target-driven approach requires large-scale afforestation and massive funding to achieve. Nearly half of the area pledged to the Bonn Challenge is in fact destined for forestry and other commercial plantations, which threaten pastoral livelihoods and cause ecological damage while having very limited potential to mitigate climate change. As the officially endorsed framework of the Bonn Challenge and related global restoration initiatives, FLR has become a powerful instrument for guiding global restoration efforts and funding. Its proponents have a responsibility to ensure that the framework is evidence-based and underpinned by appropriate ecological models for different ecoregions.
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Transboundary risk requires collaborative governance that attends to the distribution of power, authority, and capacity across the range of actors relevant to particular fire-prone landscapes. Wildfire is also changing in unprecedented ways and multiple, interacting uncertainties make predicting future wildfires difficult. Anticipatory governance can build our capacity to integrate uncertainty into wildfire decision-making and manage risk in proactive ways. Finally, competing interests and values mean that trade-offs are inherent to the wildfire problem. Risk governance links science and society through deliberative, participatory processes that explicitly navigate tradeoffs and build legitimacy for actions to address wildfire risk. Governance approaches that better target the nature of the wildfire problem will improve our ability to coexist with fire today and in the future.
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We evaluated the prominence and function of feedback loops embedded in cognitive maps—beliefs about patterns of causal relationships that drive system dynamics—elicited from a diverse cross-section of stakeholders in a fire-prone region in the U.S. West. We demonstrate that cognition of feedback loops is rare among individuals, but increasingly prominent within aggregations of cognitive maps, which underscores the importance of collaborative decision-making. Our analysis further reveals a bias toward perception of amplifying feedback loops and of loops in which management actions result in desirable outcomes, which points to areas where progress may be made in reforming wildfire risk governance.
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We focused on three metrics that are important for forest management objectives for the area: forest carbon storage, area burned at high severity, and total area burned by wildfire. Management explained a substantial amount of variance in the short term for area burned at high severity and longer term carbon storage, while climate explained the most variance in total area burned. Our results suggest that simulated extensive management activities will not meet all the desired management objectives. Both the extent and intensity of forest management will need to increase significantly to keep pace with predicted climate and wildfire conditions.
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This study quantifies the climate drivers that influence wildfire and climate stress-driven tree mortality, including a separate insect-driven tree mortality, for the contiguous United States for current (1984–2018) and project these future disturbance risks over the 21st century. We find that current risks are widespread and projected to increase across different emissions scenarios by a factor of >4 for fire and >1.3 for climate-stress mortality. These forest disturbance risks highlight pervasive climate-sensitive disturbance impacts on US forests and raise questions about the risk management approach taken by forest carbon offset policies. Our results provide US-wide risk maps of key climate-sensitive disturbances for improving carbon cycle modeling, conservation and climate policy.