Informing Decisions to Resist, Accept, or Direct Post-fire Vegetation Transitions Active
As wildfire activity surges in the western U.S., managers are increasingly challenged by decisions surrounding managing post-fire environments.Changing fire regimes and warmer,drier post-fire conditions are increasing the likelihood of post-fire vegetation transitions, for example,from forest to grassland. Given the economic and ecological importance of these ecosystems, transformation is a concern for managers, policy-makers, and the public. As rapid environmental changes occur, management aimed at maintaining historical conditions will become increasingly untenable, requiring managers to make decisions that steward vegetation toward desired or novel conditions. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework provides guidance for making these management decisions but requires an understanding of potential future conditions. We will identify plausible future ecological scenarios of vegetation change and fire regimes at management-relevant scales to help managers understand where resisting, accepting, or directing post-fire vegetation change may be most successful. For example, in areas where we project significant future changes in vegetation, managers may choose to direct post-fire vegetation towards a new vegetation type that is better adapted to the changing conditions, rather than attempting to resist post-fire vegetation change where the likelihood of success is low. In areas where we project low potential for vegetation change, managers may choose to actively restore the vegetation and associated ecosystem services that were present pre-fire. We have engaged partners frommultiple state and federal agencies and will integrate their feedback throughout the project to ensure that our products are directly applicable to theirdecision-making processes. The main product will be a based on a suite of spatial datasets we generatefor the NW and NC CASC regions, conveying arange of possible future scenarios ofvegetation, fire regimes, and resistance to annual grass invasiontoplannersandnatural resource managers who need to integrate future biophysical conditions into planning or post-fire management decisions.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 62559ba3d34e21f8276f48f7)
As wildfire activity surges in the western U.S., managers are increasingly challenged by decisions surrounding managing post-fire environments.Changing fire regimes and warmer,drier post-fire conditions are increasing the likelihood of post-fire vegetation transitions, for example,from forest to grassland. Given the economic and ecological importance of these ecosystems, transformation is a concern for managers, policy-makers, and the public. As rapid environmental changes occur, management aimed at maintaining historical conditions will become increasingly untenable, requiring managers to make decisions that steward vegetation toward desired or novel conditions. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework provides guidance for making these management decisions but requires an understanding of potential future conditions. We will identify plausible future ecological scenarios of vegetation change and fire regimes at management-relevant scales to help managers understand where resisting, accepting, or directing post-fire vegetation change may be most successful. For example, in areas where we project significant future changes in vegetation, managers may choose to direct post-fire vegetation towards a new vegetation type that is better adapted to the changing conditions, rather than attempting to resist post-fire vegetation change where the likelihood of success is low. In areas where we project low potential for vegetation change, managers may choose to actively restore the vegetation and associated ecosystem services that were present pre-fire. We have engaged partners frommultiple state and federal agencies and will integrate their feedback throughout the project to ensure that our products are directly applicable to theirdecision-making processes. The main product will be a based on a suite of spatial datasets we generatefor the NW and NC CASC regions, conveying arange of possible future scenarios ofvegetation, fire regimes, and resistance to annual grass invasiontoplannersandnatural resource managers who need to integrate future biophysical conditions into planning or post-fire management decisions.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 62559ba3d34e21f8276f48f7)