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Wildfire refugia are forest patches that are minimally-impacted by fire and provide critical habitats for fire-sensitive species and seed sources for post-fire forest regeneration. Wildfire refugia are relatively understudied, particularly concerning the impacts of subsequent fires on existing refugia. We opportunistically re-visited 122 sites classified in 1994 for a prior fire refugia study, which were burned by two wildfires in 2012 in the Cascade mountains of central Washington, USA. We evaluated the fire effects for historically persistent fire refugia and compared them to the surrounding non-refugial forest matrix. Of 122 total refugial (43 plots) and non-refugial (79 plots) sites sampled following the 2012...
To improve understanding of streamflow permanence in the Pacific Northwest, we have developed a method for predicting the annual probability of year-round streamflow at 30-meter intervals. The approach involves collecting and processing nearly 24,000 streamflow observations into “wet” or “dry” values, and synchronizing them with 291 predictor datasets that represent physical (one-time values) and climatic (monthly or annual values) conditions associated with the upstream area for each 30-meter point along streams in the Pacific Northwest. Both of these datasets are among the first of their kind and shed light on the scientific opportunities that ‘Big Data’ techniques allow for. The predictive models developed from...
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Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing natural resource management. The disruptions it is causing require that we change the way we consider conservation and resource management in order to ensure the future of habitats, species, and human communities. Practitioners often struggle with how to identify and prioritize specific climate adaptation actions (CAAs). Management actions may have a higher probability of being successful if they are informed by available scientific knowledge and findings; a systematic review process provides a mechanism to scientifically assess management questions. By evaluating specific actions on scientific knowledge and findings, we may be able to increase management...
Abstract (from http://www.publish.csiro.au/WF/WF16165): Interannual variability in burn severity is assessed across forested ecoregions of the western United States to understand how it is influenced by variations in area burned and climate during 1984–2014. Strong correlations (|r| > 0.6) between annual area burned and climate metrics were found across many of the studied regions. The burn severity of individual fires and fire seasons was weakly, but significantly (P < 0.05), correlated with burned area across many regions. Interannual variability in fuel dryness evaluated with fuel aridity metrics demonstrated weak-to-moderate (|r| >0.4) relationships with regional burn severity, congruent with but weaker than...
Streams are classified as perennial (flowing uninterrupted, year-round) or intermittent (flowing part of the year) or ephemeral (flowing only during rainfall events). The classifications of “streamflow permanence” were primarily established in the middle 20th century and are often outdated and inaccurate today if they were not adjusted for changes in land use, wildfires, or climate. Understanding where streams are perennial is important for a variety of reasons. For example, perennial streams receive special regulatory protections under a variety of statutes, and provide important habitat for fish, wildlife, and other species. To predict the likelihood that streams are perennial, we compiled nearly 25,000 observations...
Abstract (from ScienceDirect): The interannual variability of tidal marsh plant phenology is largely unknown and may have important ecological consequences. Marsh plants are critical to the biogeomorphic feedback processes that build estuarine soils, maintain marsh elevation relative to sea level, and sequester carbon. We calculated Tasseled Cap Greenness, a metric of plant biomass, using remotely sensed data available in the Landsat archive to assess how recent climate variation has affected biomass production and plant phenology across three maritime tidal marshes in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. First, we used clipped vegetation plots at one of our sites to confirm that tasseled cap greenness provided...
Abstract (from http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3955/046.089.0305): It is hypothesized that climate impacts forest mosaics through dynamic ecological processes such as wildfires. However, climate-fire research has primarily focused on understanding drivers of fire frequency and area burned, largely due to scale mismatches and limited data availability. Recent datasets, however, allow for the investigation of climate influences on ecological patch metrics across broad regions independent of area burned and at finer scale. One area of particular interest is the distribution of fire refugia within wildfire perimeters. Although much recent research emphasis has been placed on high-severity patches within wildfires,...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716308532): Across the western United States, the three primary drivers of tree mortality and carbon balance are bark beetles, timber harvest, and wildfire. While these agents of forest change frequently overlap, uncertainty remains regarding their interactions and influence on specific subsequent fire effects such as change in canopy cover. Acquisition of pre- and post-fire Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data on the 2012 Pole Creek Fire in central Oregon provided an opportunity to isolate and quantify fire effects coincident with specific agents of change. This study characterizes the influence of pre-fire mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus...
Abstract (from http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6f94/meta): High temperatures and severe drought contributed to extensive tree mortality from fires and bark beetles during the 2000s in parts of the western continental United States. Several states in this region have greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets and would benefit from information on the amount of carbon stored in tree biomass killed by disturbance. We quantified mean annual tree mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest from 2003–2012 for each state in this region. We estimated tree mortality from fires and beetles using tree aboveground carbon (AGC) stock and disturbance data sets derived largely from remote sensing. We...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716303261): Wildfires shape the distribution and structure of vegetation across the inland northwestern United States. However, fire activity is expected to increase given the current rate of climate change, with uncertain outcomes. A fire impact that has not been widely addressed is the development of unburned islands; areas within the fire perimeter that do not burn. These areas function as critical ecological refugia for biota during or following wildfires, but they have been largely ignored in methodological studies of remote sensing assessing fire severity under the assumption that they will be detected by algorithms for delineating fire...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716305016): Measuring post-fire effects at landscape scales is critical to an ecological understanding of wildfire effects. Predominantly this is accomplished with either multi-spectral remote sensing data or through ground-based field sampling plots. While these methods are important, field data is usually limited to opportunistic post-fire observations, and spectral data often lacks validation with specific variables of change. Additional uncertainty remains regarding how best to account for environmental variables influencing fire effects (e.g., weather) for which observational data cannot easily be acquired, and whether pre-fire agents of...
Unburned islands are areas within wildfire perimeters that did not burn. These islands are important because they serve as a refuge both during and after the fire for plants and animals to survive and subsequently repopulate adjacent burned areas. This project sought to better understand how and why these islands occur – what makes some areas of the landscape fireproof, even as everything around them burns? How can we use that information to manage forests and rangelands in a way that supports continued development of unburned islands and fire refugia, even under climate change? To answer these questions, we developed a historical atlas of unburned islands across the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) and...
Management actions may have a higher probability of being successful if they are informed by available scientific knowledge and findings; a systematic review process provides a mechanism to scientifically assess management questions. By evaluating specific actions on scientific knowledge and findings, we may be able to increase management effectiveness and efficiency. The goal of the Available Science Assessment Project (ASAP) is to synthesize and evaluate the body of scientific knowledge on specific, on-the-ground CAAs to determine the conditions, timeframes, and geographic areas where particular CAAs may be most effective for resource managers. We have derived a methodology that utilizes interviews, a systematic...
The objective of the Pacific Northwest Biochar Atlas is to share a range of tools, reports, and evaluations of biochars’ abilities to provide these benefits. The purpose of this Atlas is to: Provide guidance to farmers, gardeners, and other end-users on the potential benefits of biochars, including decision support tools to select biochar types and amendment rates. Support biochar producers, by sharing state-of-the-science and state-of the-industry evaluations for the PNW region. Share case studies from early adopters.
Abstract (from http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WF15082.htm): The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project is a comprehensive fire atlas for the United States that includes perimeters and severity data for all fires greater than a particular size (~400 ha in the western US, and ~200 ha in the eastern US). Although the database was derived for management purposes, the scientific community has expressed interest in its research capacity. As with any derived data, it is critical to understand inherent limitations to maximise the utility of the dataset without compromising the inferences. The classified severity product in particular is of limited use to research due to a lack of both consistency in developing class...
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Preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change are critical to the wellbeing of tribal communities that rely on natural resources to sustain their families, communities, traditional ways of life, and cultural identities. Recognizing this, efforts across the country are underway to support and enhance the capacity of tribes to prepare for climate change risks. However, due to staffing, technical, and financial limitations, many tribes continue to experience difficulty initiating and completing the critical first step of the climate adaptation planning process: a “climate change vulnerability assessment”, i.e., a structured assessment of the specific potential impacts of climate change that the tribe...
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As the dominant force that sets the structure and function of most Pacific Northwest forests, fire is likely to be the major catalyst of forest change in a warming climate. Rising temperatures, decreased snowpack, and earlier snowmelt are expected to lead to longer fire seasons, drier fuel, and an increase in the area burned by wildfires in the future. Forest managers therefore need information on how wildfire patterns and forests will change as the climate warms, in order to guide management activities that can sustain the important ecosystem services that forests provide – including timber production, carbon storage, improved water quality, and recreational opportunities. To address this need, researchers developed...
Abstract (from Biogeosciences): Fire is a dynamic ecological process in forests and impacts the carbon (C) cycle through direct combustion emissions, tree mortality, and by impairing the ability of surviving trees to sequester carbon. While studies on young trees have demonstrated that fire intensity is a determinant of post-fire net primary productivity, wildland fires on landscape to regional scales have largely been assumed to either cause tree mortality, or conversely, cause no physiological impact, ignoring the impacted but surviving trees. Our objective was to understand how fire intensity affects post-fire net primary productivity in conifer-dominated forested ecosystems on the spatial scale of large wildland...
    map background search result map search result map The Available Science Assessment Process (ASAP): Evaluating the Science behind Climate Adaptation Actions Building Tribal Capacity to Assess Vulnerability to Climate Change Changing Fires, Changing Forests: The Effects of Climate Change on Wildfire Patterns and Forests in the Pacific Northwest Changing Fires, Changing Forests: The Effects of Climate Change on Wildfire Patterns and Forests in the Pacific Northwest The Available Science Assessment Process (ASAP): Evaluating the Science behind Climate Adaptation Actions Building Tribal Capacity to Assess Vulnerability to Climate Change