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This study asked whether success in restoration seedings of the foundational species big sagebrush was related to estimated water deficit in previously burned areas in the western United States. Standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI), a widely used drought index, was not predictive of whether sagebrush had reestablished. In contrast, wet-warm days elicited a critical drought threshold response, with successfully reestablished sites having experienced 7 more wet-warm days than unsuccessful sites during the first March following summer wildfire and restoration. Thus, seemingly small-scale and short-term changes in water availability and temperature can contribute to major ecosystem shifts, as many of these sites remained shrubless two decades later. These findings help clarify the definition of ecological drought for a foundational species and its imperiled semi-arid ecosystem. Drought is well known to affect the occurrence of wildfires, but drought in the year(s) after fire can determine whether fire causes long-lasting, negative impacts on ecosystems.
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Modelling the spatial prioritization of fuel treatments and their net effect on values at risk is an important area for applied work as economic damages from wildfire continue to grow. We model and demonstrate a cost-effective fuel treatment planning algorithm using two ecosystem services as benefits for which fuel treatments are prioritized. We create a surface of expected fuel treatment costs to incorporate the heterogeneity in factors affecting the revenue and costs of fuel treatments, and then prioritize treatments based on a cost-effectiveness ratio to maximize the averted loss of ecosystem services from fire. We compare treatment scenarios that employ cost-effectiveness with those that do not, and use common tools and models in a case study of the Sisters Ranger District on the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon.
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Higher tree density, more fuels, and a warmer, drier climate have caused an increase in the frequency, size, and severity of wildfires in western U.S. forests. There is an urgent need to restore forests across the western United States. To address this need, the U.S. Forest Service began the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) to restore four national forests in Arizona. The objective of this study was to evaluate how restoration of ~400,000 ha under the 4FRI program and projected climate change would influence carbon dynamics and wildfire severity from 2010 to 2099. Specifically, we estimated forest carbon fluxes, carbon pools and wildfire severity under a moderate and fast 4FRI implementation schedule and compared those to status quo and no‐harvest scenarios using the LANDIS‐II simulation model and climate change projections.
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We utilize geospatial data, recorded interviews, and program documentation to synthesize how those strategies subsequently impacted the advance of the 2017 Thomas Fire on the community of Montecito under extreme fire danger conditions. Despite the extreme wind conditions and interviewee estimates of potentially hundreds of homes being consumed, only seven primary residences were destroyed by the Thomas Fire, and firefighters indicated that pre-fire mitigation activities played a clear, central role in the outcomes observed. This supports prior findings that community partnerships between agencies and citizens are critical for identifying and implementing place-based solutions to reducing wildfire vulnerability.
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Collaborative forest management efforts often encounter challenges related to process and stakeholder relationships. To address these challenges, groups may employ the services of coordinators and facilitators who perform a range of tasks in support of the collaborative. We sought to understand differences between facilitation and coordination in terms of trust creation and maintenance. We conducted case studies in four collaborative groups, one with a facilitator and three with coordinators. We highlight the trust-building practices unique to the facilitator and discuss the potential implications for future collaborative groups.
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The Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) is used to provide the meteorological data for calculating the indices. Our results indicate that HDW can identify days on which synoptic-and meso-alpha-scale weather processes can contribute to especially dangerous fire behavior. HDW is shown to perform better than the HI for each of the four historical fires. Additionally, since HDW is based on the meteorological variables that govern the potential for the atmosphere to affect a fire, it is possible to speculate on why HDW would be more or less effective based on the conditions that prevail in a given fire case. The HI, in contrast, does not have a physical basis, which makes speculation on why it works or does not work difficult because the mechanisms are not clear.
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In this study, we use freely available, satellite remote sensing to explore changes in vegetation productivity(normalized difference vegetation index) of three distinct, low-tech, riparian and wet meadow restoration projects. Case studies are presented that range in geographic location (Colorado, Oregon, and Nevada), restoration practice (Zeedyk structures,beaver dam analogs, and grazing management), and time since implementation. Restoration practices resulted in increased vegetation productivity of up to 25% and increased annual persistence of productive vegetation. Improvements in productivity with time since restoration suggest that elevated resilience may further enhance wildlife habitat and increase forage production.Long-term, documented outcomes of conservation are rare; we hope our findings empower practitioners to further monitor and explore the use of low-tech methods for restoration of ecohydrologic processes at meaningful spatial scales.
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This study presents a method and case study to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration of riparian vegetation using a web-based cloud-computing and visualization tool (ClimateEngine.org) to access and process remote sensing and climate data. In each study area, the post-restoration NDVI-precipitation relationship was statistically distinct from the pre-restoration relationship, suggesting a change in the fundamental relationship between precipitation and NDVI resulting from stream restoration. We infer that the in-stream structures, which raised the water table in the adjacent riparian areas, provided additional water to the streamside vegetation that was not available before restoration and reduced the dependence of riparian vegetation on precipitation. This approach provides a cost-effective, quantitative method for assessing the effects of stream restoration projects on riparian vegetation.
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Low-severity wildland fires and prescribed burns have long been presumed by scientists and resource managers to be harmless to soils, but this may not be the case, new research shows. According to two new studies, low-severity burns cause damage to soil structure and organic matter in ways that are not immediately apparent after a fire.
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Through a series of examples spanning at least four research disciplines and three ranges of spatial scale, we illustrate that by precisely defining parameters in a way that holds across scales and relaxing one steady-state simplification, we begin to capture the inherent variability that has largely eluded the fire behavior community. Through exploring examples of “deep interdependence,” we make the case that fire behavior science is well equipped to launch forward into more complex lines of inquiry.