Rachel A Loehman, Ph.D.
My research focuses on understanding complex, multi-scale dynamics of natural and coupled human-natural systems, particularly focused on impacts of disturbance (climate changes, wildfires, insect outbreaks, erosion and sedimentation, invasive species) on landscapes, ecological communities, and natural and cultural resources.
Research summary
My projects integrate field studies, in-situ instrumentation and monitoring, ecosystem and fire models, geospatial and statistical modeling and analysis, and ecological theory to provide new insights into changing climates, disturbance regimes, and landscapes. Applications include development of strategies for restoration of forests and fire regimes, assessments of landscape resilience and vulnerability, reconstruction of long-term human-environment interactions, predictive models of climate-vegetation-disturbance interactions, quantification of fire impacts on above- and belowground cultural and natural resources, and development of new tools and techniques for quantifying and managing shifting environments. I work in coastal, boreal, and tundra ecosystems in Alaska as well as forest and woodland ecosystems in the interior west and southwestern U.S.
Professional Experience
2014 - Present Research Landscape Ecologist, US Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, Alaska
2009-2014 Research Ecologist, USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Lab, Missoula, Montana
2007-2009 Research Scientist, Systems for Environmental Management, Missoula, Montana
2007-2008 Climate Change Analyst, National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, The University of Montana
2006-2007 Post-doctoral Research Scientist, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, The University of Montana
2004-2006 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, The University of Montana
2001-2004 NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, The University of Montana
1997-2000 GIS/Remote Sensing Specialist, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. 2006 The University of Montana Ecosystems Ecology
M.A. 1999 University of New Mexico Biogeography
B.A. 1995 University of New Mexico Anthropology
Affiliations and Memberships*
Association for Fire Ecology (Board member, 2017-present)
Alaska Fire Science Consortium (Board member, 2016-present)
Society for American Archaeology
USGS Fire Science Communities of Practice
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) Wildfires Collaboration Team
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 29
No results found.
Filter Total Items: 41
Historical range and variation (HRV)
Fire-prone landscapes are experiencing rapid and potentially persistent changes as the result of complex and potentially novel interactions of anthropogenic climate changes, shifting fire regimes, exotic plant, insect, and pathogen invasions, and industrial, agricultural, and urban development. Are these landscapes fully departed from historical conditions? Should they be managed as...
Authors
Robert Keane, Rachel A. Loehman
User guide to the FireCLIME Vulnerability Assessment (VA) Tool: A rapid and flexible system for assessing ecosystem vulnerability to climate-fire interactions
Decisionmakers need better methods for identifying critical ecosystem vulnerabilities to changing climate and fire regimes. Climate-wildfire-vegetation interactions are complex and hinder classification and projection necessary for development of management strategies. One such vulnerability assessment (VA) is FireCLIME VA, which allows users to compare management strategies under...
Authors
Megan Friggens, Rachel A. Loehman, Andi Thode, William T. Flatley, Alexander Evans, Windy Bunn, Craig Wilcox, Stephanie Mueller, Larissa Yocum, Donald A. Falk
Giving ecological meaning to satellite-derived fire severity metrics across North American forests
Satellite-derived spectral indices such as the relativized burn ratio (RBR) allow fire severity maps to be produced in a relatively straightforward manner across multiple fires and broad spatial extents. These indices often have strong relationships with field-based measurements of fire severity, thereby justifying their widespread use in management and science. However, satellite...
Authors
Sean Parks, Lisa M. Holsinger, Michael J. Koontz, Luke S. Collins, Ellen Whitman, Marc-André Parisien, Rachel A. Loehman, Jennifer L. Barnes, Jean-François Bourdon, Jonathan Boucher, Yan Boucher, Anthony C. Caprio, Adam Collingwood, Ron Hall, Jane Park, Lisa Saperstein, Charlotte Smetanka, Rebecca A. Smith, Nick Soverel
Selecting a landscape model for natural resource management applications
Purpose of Review: Climate change and associated ecological impacts have challenged many conventional, observation-based approaches for predicting ecosystem and landscape responses to natural resource management. Complex spatial ecological models provide powerful, flexible tools which managers and others can use to make inferences about management impacts on future, no-analog landscape...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa M. Holsinger
Use of landscape simulation modeling to quantify resilience for ecological applications
Goals of fostering ecological resilience are increasingly used to guide U.S. public land management in the context of anthropogenic climate change and increasing landscape disturbances. There are, however, few operational means of assessing the resilience of a landscape or ecosystem. We present a method to evaluate resilience using simulation modeling. In this method, we use historical...
Authors
Robert Keane, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa M. Holsinger, Donald A. Falk, Phil E Higuera, Sharon Hood, Paul F. Hessburg
Influence of landscape structure, topography, and forest type on spatial variation in historical fire regimes, central Oregon, USA
Context In the interior Northwest, debate over restoring mixed-conifer forests after a century of fire exclusion is hampered by poor understanding of the pattern and causes of spatial variation in historical fire regimes. Objectives To identify the roles of topography, landscape structure, and forest type in driving spatial variation in historical fire regimes in mixed-conifer forests of...
Authors
Andrew Merschel, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Thomas A. Spies, Rachel A. Loehman
Mean composite fire severity metrics computed with Google Earth Engine offer improved accuracy and expanded mapping potential
Landsat-based fire severity datasets are an invaluable resource for monitoring and research purposes. These gridded fire severity datasets are generally produced with pre-and post-fire imagery to estimate the degree of fire-induced ecological change. Here, we introduce methods to produce three Landsat-based fire severity metrics using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform: the delta...
Authors
Sean Parks, Lisa M. Holsinger, Morgan Voss, Rachel A. Loehman, Nathaniel P. Robinson
Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the Northern Rockies Region [Chapter 8]
This chapter describes the ecology of important disturbance regimes in the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USFS) Northern Region and the Greater Yellowstone Area, hereafter called the Northern Rockies region, and potential shifts in these regimes as a consequence of observed and projected climate change. The term disturbance regime describes the general temporal and...
Authors
Rachel A. Loehman, Barbara J. Bentz, Gregg A. DeNitto, Robert E. Keane, Mary E. Manning, Jacob P. Duncan, Joel M. Egan, Marcus B. Jackson, Sandra Kegley, I. Blakey Lockman, Dean E. Pearson, James A. Powell, Steve Shelly, Brytten E. Steed, Paul J. Zambino
Effects of climate change on forest vegetation in the Northern Rockies Region
The projected rapid changes in climate will affect the unique vegetation assemblages of the Northern Rockies region in myriad ways, both directly through shifts in vegetation growth, mortality, and regeneration, and indirectly through changes in disturbance regimes and interactions with changes in other ecosystem processes, such as hydrology, snow dynamics, and exotic invasions (Bonan...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Mary Frances Mahalovich, Barry L. Bollenbacher, Mary E. Manning, Rachel A. Loehman, Terrie B. Jain, Lisa M. Holsinger, Andrew J. Larson, Meredith M. Webster
Effects of climate change on forest vegetation in the northern Rockies
Increasing air temperature, through its influence on soil moisture, is expected to cause gradual changes in the abundance and distribution of tree, shrub, and grass species throughout the Northern Rockies, with drought tolerant species becoming more competitive. The earliest changes will be at ecotones between lifeforms (e.g., upper and lower treelines). Ecological disturbance, including...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Mary Frances Mahalovich, Barry L. Bollenbacher, Mary E. Manning, Rachel A. Loehman, Terrie B. Jain, Lisa M. Holsinger, Andrew J. Larson
Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the northern Rockies
Disturbances alter ecosystem, community, or population structure and change elements of the biological and/or physical environment. Climate changes can alter the timing, magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance events, as well as the interactions of disturbances on a landscape, and climate change may already be affecting disturbance events and regimes. Interactions among...
Authors
Rachel A. Loehman, Barbara J. Bentz, Gregg A. DeNitto, Robert E. Keane, Mary E. Manning, Jacob P. Duncan, Joel M. Egan, Marcus B. Jackson, Sandra Kegley, I. Blakey Lockman, Dean E. Pearson, James A. Powell, Steve Shelly, Brytten E. Steed, Paul J. Zambino
Climate changes and wildfire alter vegetation of Yellowstone National Park, but forest cover persists
We present landscape simulation results contrasting effects of changing climates on forest vegetation and fire regimes in Yellowstone National Park, USA, by mid-21st century. We simulated potential changes to fire dynamics and forest characteristics under three future climate projections representing a range of potential future conditions using the FireBGCv2 model. Under the future...
Authors
Jason A. Clark, Rachel A. Loehman, Robert E. Keane
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 29
No results found.
Filter Total Items: 41
Historical range and variation (HRV)
Fire-prone landscapes are experiencing rapid and potentially persistent changes as the result of complex and potentially novel interactions of anthropogenic climate changes, shifting fire regimes, exotic plant, insect, and pathogen invasions, and industrial, agricultural, and urban development. Are these landscapes fully departed from historical conditions? Should they be managed as...
Authors
Robert Keane, Rachel A. Loehman
User guide to the FireCLIME Vulnerability Assessment (VA) Tool: A rapid and flexible system for assessing ecosystem vulnerability to climate-fire interactions
Decisionmakers need better methods for identifying critical ecosystem vulnerabilities to changing climate and fire regimes. Climate-wildfire-vegetation interactions are complex and hinder classification and projection necessary for development of management strategies. One such vulnerability assessment (VA) is FireCLIME VA, which allows users to compare management strategies under...
Authors
Megan Friggens, Rachel A. Loehman, Andi Thode, William T. Flatley, Alexander Evans, Windy Bunn, Craig Wilcox, Stephanie Mueller, Larissa Yocum, Donald A. Falk
Giving ecological meaning to satellite-derived fire severity metrics across North American forests
Satellite-derived spectral indices such as the relativized burn ratio (RBR) allow fire severity maps to be produced in a relatively straightforward manner across multiple fires and broad spatial extents. These indices often have strong relationships with field-based measurements of fire severity, thereby justifying their widespread use in management and science. However, satellite...
Authors
Sean Parks, Lisa M. Holsinger, Michael J. Koontz, Luke S. Collins, Ellen Whitman, Marc-André Parisien, Rachel A. Loehman, Jennifer L. Barnes, Jean-François Bourdon, Jonathan Boucher, Yan Boucher, Anthony C. Caprio, Adam Collingwood, Ron Hall, Jane Park, Lisa Saperstein, Charlotte Smetanka, Rebecca A. Smith, Nick Soverel
Selecting a landscape model for natural resource management applications
Purpose of Review: Climate change and associated ecological impacts have challenged many conventional, observation-based approaches for predicting ecosystem and landscape responses to natural resource management. Complex spatial ecological models provide powerful, flexible tools which managers and others can use to make inferences about management impacts on future, no-analog landscape...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa M. Holsinger
Use of landscape simulation modeling to quantify resilience for ecological applications
Goals of fostering ecological resilience are increasingly used to guide U.S. public land management in the context of anthropogenic climate change and increasing landscape disturbances. There are, however, few operational means of assessing the resilience of a landscape or ecosystem. We present a method to evaluate resilience using simulation modeling. In this method, we use historical...
Authors
Robert Keane, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa M. Holsinger, Donald A. Falk, Phil E Higuera, Sharon Hood, Paul F. Hessburg
Influence of landscape structure, topography, and forest type on spatial variation in historical fire regimes, central Oregon, USA
Context In the interior Northwest, debate over restoring mixed-conifer forests after a century of fire exclusion is hampered by poor understanding of the pattern and causes of spatial variation in historical fire regimes. Objectives To identify the roles of topography, landscape structure, and forest type in driving spatial variation in historical fire regimes in mixed-conifer forests of...
Authors
Andrew Merschel, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Thomas A. Spies, Rachel A. Loehman
Mean composite fire severity metrics computed with Google Earth Engine offer improved accuracy and expanded mapping potential
Landsat-based fire severity datasets are an invaluable resource for monitoring and research purposes. These gridded fire severity datasets are generally produced with pre-and post-fire imagery to estimate the degree of fire-induced ecological change. Here, we introduce methods to produce three Landsat-based fire severity metrics using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform: the delta...
Authors
Sean Parks, Lisa M. Holsinger, Morgan Voss, Rachel A. Loehman, Nathaniel P. Robinson
Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the Northern Rockies Region [Chapter 8]
This chapter describes the ecology of important disturbance regimes in the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USFS) Northern Region and the Greater Yellowstone Area, hereafter called the Northern Rockies region, and potential shifts in these regimes as a consequence of observed and projected climate change. The term disturbance regime describes the general temporal and...
Authors
Rachel A. Loehman, Barbara J. Bentz, Gregg A. DeNitto, Robert E. Keane, Mary E. Manning, Jacob P. Duncan, Joel M. Egan, Marcus B. Jackson, Sandra Kegley, I. Blakey Lockman, Dean E. Pearson, James A. Powell, Steve Shelly, Brytten E. Steed, Paul J. Zambino
Effects of climate change on forest vegetation in the Northern Rockies Region
The projected rapid changes in climate will affect the unique vegetation assemblages of the Northern Rockies region in myriad ways, both directly through shifts in vegetation growth, mortality, and regeneration, and indirectly through changes in disturbance regimes and interactions with changes in other ecosystem processes, such as hydrology, snow dynamics, and exotic invasions (Bonan...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Mary Frances Mahalovich, Barry L. Bollenbacher, Mary E. Manning, Rachel A. Loehman, Terrie B. Jain, Lisa M. Holsinger, Andrew J. Larson, Meredith M. Webster
Effects of climate change on forest vegetation in the northern Rockies
Increasing air temperature, through its influence on soil moisture, is expected to cause gradual changes in the abundance and distribution of tree, shrub, and grass species throughout the Northern Rockies, with drought tolerant species becoming more competitive. The earliest changes will be at ecotones between lifeforms (e.g., upper and lower treelines). Ecological disturbance, including...
Authors
Robert E. Keane, Mary Frances Mahalovich, Barry L. Bollenbacher, Mary E. Manning, Rachel A. Loehman, Terrie B. Jain, Lisa M. Holsinger, Andrew J. Larson
Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the northern Rockies
Disturbances alter ecosystem, community, or population structure and change elements of the biological and/or physical environment. Climate changes can alter the timing, magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance events, as well as the interactions of disturbances on a landscape, and climate change may already be affecting disturbance events and regimes. Interactions among...
Authors
Rachel A. Loehman, Barbara J. Bentz, Gregg A. DeNitto, Robert E. Keane, Mary E. Manning, Jacob P. Duncan, Joel M. Egan, Marcus B. Jackson, Sandra Kegley, I. Blakey Lockman, Dean E. Pearson, James A. Powell, Steve Shelly, Brytten E. Steed, Paul J. Zambino
Climate changes and wildfire alter vegetation of Yellowstone National Park, but forest cover persists
We present landscape simulation results contrasting effects of changing climates on forest vegetation and fire regimes in Yellowstone National Park, USA, by mid-21st century. We simulated potential changes to fire dynamics and forest characteristics under three future climate projections representing a range of potential future conditions using the FireBGCv2 model. Under the future...
Authors
Jason A. Clark, Rachel A. Loehman, Robert E. Keane
USGS Location
*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government