The size and number of large wildland fires in the western United States have grown dramatically over the past decade, with a contingent rise in damages and suppression costs. This trend will likely continue with further growth of the wildland urban interface (WUI) into fire prone ecosystems, hazardous fuel conditions from decades of fire suppression, and a potentially increasing effect from prolonged drought and climate change. While the direct effects from catastrophic wildfire are often evident, less obvious are the indirect effects and subtle changes in ecosystem services and the characteristics of these coupled socio-ecological systems.
The Integrated Wildland Fire Science project is a multi-disciplinary effort addressing wildland fire and the human and biophysical factors that affect, and are affected by fire.
Climate change, future wildfires, and watershed vulnerability
Jason Kreitler, Joel Sankey, Todd Hawbaker, Nicole Vaillant, and Scott Lowe
A current project funded by the Northwest Climate Science Center, entitled “Changes to watershed vulnerability under future climates, fire regimes, and population pressures” is trying to understand where, when, and how climate change may affect watershed-based ecosystem services. Researchers are investigating how climate change and wildfire will likely affect watersheds, and therefore water quality and supply, under current conditions and future climates in the western U.S. Projected changes in temperature and wildland fire will likely affect water supply through decreased water quality and increased sedimentation. For the same future periods, the team will project changes to water demand due to land use change and population growth.
The Western population is projected to grow by 310 million people by 2100, and will likely increase demand for diminishing water supplies. Because changes from climate and population pressures cannot easily be altered, knowing which watersheds are currently vulnerable, or are projected to be vulnerable in the future, will enable proactive management of water and fuels to most effectively reduce the potential impact by wildfire.
For more information see recent press releases (1,2,3) or the project website (https://www.nwclimatescience.org/projects/watershed-vulnerability-under-future-climates-fire-regimes-and-population-pressures)
Recent press:
- NPR - http://knau.org/post/flagstaff-study-wildfire-may-double-erosion-quarter-western-watersheds#stream/0
- AAAS - http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/gsoa-wmd110315.php
- ScienceDaily - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151103151112.htm
Vulnerability and ecosystem services in wildfire risk assessments and fuel treatment planning
Jason Kreitler, Nicole Vaillant, and Nathan Wood
Fuel treatments are often considered the primary pre-fire mechanism to reduce the exposure of human life and values at risk to wildland fire, and a growing suite of fire models and tools are employed to prioritize where treatments could mitigate wildland fire damages. Assessments using the likelihood and consequence of fire are critical because funds are insufficient to reduce risk on all lands needing treatment, therefore prioritization is required to maximize the effectiveness of fuel treatment budgets.
To include ecosystem services in fuel treatment planning, we model biomass as a proxy for the climate regulating ecosystem service of carbon storage, and sediment retention as a contributing factor to water quality, in a case study on the Deschutes National Forest of Central Oregon. Our objective is to maximize the averted loss of ecosystem service benefits subject to a fuel treatment budget. We model expected fuel treatment costs across the study landscape using a modified version of the My Fuel Treatment Planner software, using stand-level tree list data, local mill prices, and GIS-measured site characteristics. Using this dataset, we introduce cost-effectiveness as a measure for the spatial prioritization of fuel treatments using the Land Treatment Designer program. We test four prioritization algorithms and measure the effectiveness of each algorithm in ecosystem service terms by comparing the differences between treatment and no treatment scenarios. We use fire simulations to generate burn probabilities, and estimate fire intensity as conditional flame length at each pixel. Two algorithms prioritize treatments based on cost-effectiveness and show small to substantial gains over those using only benefits. A larger effect of incorporating cost-effectiveness is the ability to treat up to 25% more area for the same budget. Variations in the heterogeneity of costs and benefits create opportunities for fuel treatments to maximize their expected averted loss of values. By targeting these opportunities we demonstrate how our cost-effective framework can improve the outcome of fuel treatment planning.
Pre and post-fire LiDAR analysis of burn severity in the Pole Creek wildfire
Jason Kreitler and Nicole Vaillant
This project addresses several questions using a unique remote sensing opportunity to analyze prefire and postfire LiDAR data. The Pole Creek fire burned 27,000 acres through various forest types in October 2012 in Deschutes National Forest near Sisters, Oregon. LiDAR data were collected prior to the wildfire, offering a unique opportunity to investigate fire disturbance impacts and processes with high resolution data. Research efforts include comparison of LiDAR and Landsat-derived burn severity, biomass and carbon accounting, fine-scale risk assessments, and fuel treatment effectiveness using multitemporal LiDAR data, Landsat 8 burn severity (dNBR and CBI), and change-analysis techniques. Field crews from the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Idaho gathered data on the fire to quantify the fuel load, understory vegetation, and tree characteristics. This research is quantifying how prefire forest condition affected burn severity, and how various remote sensing techniques can be used to explain fire patterns and improve modeling of wildland fire and forest ecology.
The size and number of large wildland fires in the western United States have grown dramatically over the past decade, with a contingent rise in damages and suppression costs. This trend will likely continue with further growth of the wildland urban interface (WUI) into fire prone ecosystems, hazardous fuel conditions from decades of fire suppression, and a potentially increasing effect from prolonged drought and climate change. While the direct effects from catastrophic wildfire are often evident, less obvious are the indirect effects and subtle changes in ecosystem services and the characteristics of these coupled socio-ecological systems.
The Integrated Wildland Fire Science project is a multi-disciplinary effort addressing wildland fire and the human and biophysical factors that affect, and are affected by fire.
Climate change, future wildfires, and watershed vulnerability
Jason Kreitler, Joel Sankey, Todd Hawbaker, Nicole Vaillant, and Scott Lowe
A current project funded by the Northwest Climate Science Center, entitled “Changes to watershed vulnerability under future climates, fire regimes, and population pressures” is trying to understand where, when, and how climate change may affect watershed-based ecosystem services. Researchers are investigating how climate change and wildfire will likely affect watersheds, and therefore water quality and supply, under current conditions and future climates in the western U.S. Projected changes in temperature and wildland fire will likely affect water supply through decreased water quality and increased sedimentation. For the same future periods, the team will project changes to water demand due to land use change and population growth.
The Western population is projected to grow by 310 million people by 2100, and will likely increase demand for diminishing water supplies. Because changes from climate and population pressures cannot easily be altered, knowing which watersheds are currently vulnerable, or are projected to be vulnerable in the future, will enable proactive management of water and fuels to most effectively reduce the potential impact by wildfire.
For more information see recent press releases (1,2,3) or the project website (https://www.nwclimatescience.org/projects/watershed-vulnerability-under-future-climates-fire-regimes-and-population-pressures)
Recent press:
- NPR - http://knau.org/post/flagstaff-study-wildfire-may-double-erosion-quarter-western-watersheds#stream/0
- AAAS - http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/gsoa-wmd110315.php
- ScienceDaily - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151103151112.htm
Vulnerability and ecosystem services in wildfire risk assessments and fuel treatment planning
Jason Kreitler, Nicole Vaillant, and Nathan Wood
Fuel treatments are often considered the primary pre-fire mechanism to reduce the exposure of human life and values at risk to wildland fire, and a growing suite of fire models and tools are employed to prioritize where treatments could mitigate wildland fire damages. Assessments using the likelihood and consequence of fire are critical because funds are insufficient to reduce risk on all lands needing treatment, therefore prioritization is required to maximize the effectiveness of fuel treatment budgets.
To include ecosystem services in fuel treatment planning, we model biomass as a proxy for the climate regulating ecosystem service of carbon storage, and sediment retention as a contributing factor to water quality, in a case study on the Deschutes National Forest of Central Oregon. Our objective is to maximize the averted loss of ecosystem service benefits subject to a fuel treatment budget. We model expected fuel treatment costs across the study landscape using a modified version of the My Fuel Treatment Planner software, using stand-level tree list data, local mill prices, and GIS-measured site characteristics. Using this dataset, we introduce cost-effectiveness as a measure for the spatial prioritization of fuel treatments using the Land Treatment Designer program. We test four prioritization algorithms and measure the effectiveness of each algorithm in ecosystem service terms by comparing the differences between treatment and no treatment scenarios. We use fire simulations to generate burn probabilities, and estimate fire intensity as conditional flame length at each pixel. Two algorithms prioritize treatments based on cost-effectiveness and show small to substantial gains over those using only benefits. A larger effect of incorporating cost-effectiveness is the ability to treat up to 25% more area for the same budget. Variations in the heterogeneity of costs and benefits create opportunities for fuel treatments to maximize their expected averted loss of values. By targeting these opportunities we demonstrate how our cost-effective framework can improve the outcome of fuel treatment planning.
Pre and post-fire LiDAR analysis of burn severity in the Pole Creek wildfire
Jason Kreitler and Nicole Vaillant
This project addresses several questions using a unique remote sensing opportunity to analyze prefire and postfire LiDAR data. The Pole Creek fire burned 27,000 acres through various forest types in October 2012 in Deschutes National Forest near Sisters, Oregon. LiDAR data were collected prior to the wildfire, offering a unique opportunity to investigate fire disturbance impacts and processes with high resolution data. Research efforts include comparison of LiDAR and Landsat-derived burn severity, biomass and carbon accounting, fine-scale risk assessments, and fuel treatment effectiveness using multitemporal LiDAR data, Landsat 8 burn severity (dNBR and CBI), and change-analysis techniques. Field crews from the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Idaho gathered data on the fire to quantify the fuel load, understory vegetation, and tree characteristics. This research is quantifying how prefire forest condition affected burn severity, and how various remote sensing techniques can be used to explain fire patterns and improve modeling of wildland fire and forest ecology.