Decision Support
Webinar registration.
The Free Roaming Equid and Ecosystem Sustainability network will host two free public webinars with the first one starting on April 5, 2023 and the second April 25th to demonstrate PopEquus and answer questions about the model. The webinars will feature scientists from the USGS and BLM who helped develop the tool.
Webinar registration.
The Free Roaming Equid and Ecosystem Sustainability network will host two free public webinars with the first one starting on April 5, 2023 and the second April 25th to demonstrate PopEquus and answer questions about the model. The webinars will feature scientists from the USGS and BLM who helped develop the tool.
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Users indicated that the program is viewed as efficient for sharing information about wildfires and documenting management decision rationale. They identified emerging gaps in technical proficiency and the need for specialised training that creates high-level users to help guide teams using the program.
Access the tool.
PopEquus is open-source and uses peer-reviewed information to model expected outcomes for a given population of wild horses and the cost associated with that outcome. The model can project, for example, what the population size of a given wild horse herd will be after 10 years using a fertility-control vaccine to prevent pregnancy in a proportion of mares, as well as the expected cost. BLM managers can use this information to compare different possible management strategies.
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In this forum paper we briefly review current knowledge of common fuel treatment approaches, their intended benefits, potential risks, and limitations. We additionally discuss challenges for fuel treatment strategies in the context of changes in climate, invasive species, wildlife habitat, and human population, and we explore how advances in geospatial technologies, monitoring, and fire behavior modeling, as well as accounting for social context, can improve the efficacy of fuels management in sagebrush ecosystems. Finally, given continued potential for ecosystem transformation, we describe approaches to future fuels management by considering the applicability of the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework. The intent of the paper is to provide scientists and land managers with key information and a forward-thinking framework for fuels science and adaptive management that can respond to both expected and unexpected changes in sagebrush rangelands.
Webinar recording.
The fourth webinar of the Forest Service’s Research and Development SCIENCEx FIRE week.
Modeling Risks and Tradeoffs
Wildland Fire Behavior and Ignition | Greg Dillon
Juggling Risks and Tradeoffs Toward a More Resilient Future: The Known, Unknown, Unknowable, and Unpleasant | Pat Manley & Nick Povak
Southern Forest Outlook: Fire in a Changing Landscape | Nick Gould
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Our results imply that a 50% reduction in forest basal area could reduce drought-driven tree mortality by 20%–80%. The largest impacts of density reduction are seen in areas with high current basal area and places that experience high temperatures and/or severe multiyear droughts. These interactions between competition and drought are critical to understand past and future patterns of tree mortality in the context of climate change, and provide information for resource managers seeking to enhance dry forest drought resistance.
Webinar recording.
In the winter and spring of 2022, the National Forest Foundation (NFF), in coordination with the USDA Forest Service, hosted a series of roundtables across the country to gather input on the Wildfire Crisis Strategy Implementation Plan. The NFF distilled these productive discussions with Forest Service employees and partners into regional reports and an overall synthesis report, available at nationalforests.org/wildfire-roundtables.
The purpose of this webinar is to share more information about the report, discuss next steps, and provide an opportunity for Q&A with Forest Service leadership.
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Across all cases, actors spanned boundaries to perform functions including: (1) convening meetings and agreements; (2) implementing projects; (3) community outreach; (4) funding support; (5) project planning; (6) scientific expertise. These functions fostered conducive boundary settings, concepts and objects to communicate and work across boundaries, navigating challenges to implementing work on the ground. This work highlights context-specific ways to advance cross-boundary wildfire risk reduction efforts and uses a boundary spanning lens to illustrate how collective action in wildfire management evolves in different settings. This research highlights prescribed fire as a gateway for future collective action on wildfire risk, including managing naturally ignited wildfires for resource benefits and improving coordination during wildfire suppression efforts.