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Fire has always been a part of life in southern California. Climate change and current fire management practices have led to catastrophic losses and impacts to human health, infrastructure and ecosystems, as seen, for example, in the 2018 Montecito debris flow. Indigenous wisdom instructs that rather than suppressing fire, we should seek to be in good relationship with fire. This project centers the voices of Chumash people by revitalizing their good relationship with fire in Chumash homelands. This revitalization comes at a critical time for both fire management and revitalization of Indigenous cultural burning practices in the southwest. The project will enable the recovery and documenting of Chumash knowledge...
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The 2017 fire season in California was highly unusual with its late seasonal timing, the areal extent it burned, and its devastation to communities. These fires were associated with extreme winds and were potentially also influenced by unusually dry conditions during several years leading up to the 2017 events. This fire season brought additional attention and emphasized the vital need for managers in the western U.S. to have access to scientific information on when and where to expect dangerous fire events. Understanding the multiple factors that cause extreme wildfire events is critical to short and long-term forecasting and planning. Seasonal climate measures such as temperature and precipitation are commonly...
Abstract (from RMetS): Over the Upper Colorado River basin (UCRB), temperatures in widely used gridded data products do not warm as much as mean temperatures from a stable set of U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations, located at generally lower elevations, in most months of the year. This is contrary to expectations of elevation‐dependent warming, which suggests that warming increases with elevation. These findings could reflect (a) a genuine absence of elevation‐dependent warming in the region, (b) systematic non‐climatic influences on either the USHCN stations or high‐elevation stations, including known inhomogeneities related to changes in the time of observation and instrumentation, or (c) suppression...
Abstract (from AMS): The upper Colorado River basin (UCRB) is one of the primary sources of water for the western United States, and increasing temperatures likely will elevate the risk of reduced water supply in the basin. Although variability in water-year precipitation explains more of the variability in water-year UCRB streamflow than water-year UCRB temperature, since the late 1980s, increases in temperature in the UCRB have caused a substantial reduction in UCRB runoff efficiency (the ratio of streamflow to precipitation). These reductions in flow because of increasing temperatures are the largest documented temperature-related reductions since record keeping began. Increases in UCRB temperature over the past...
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Wildfire is a natural and essential process in forest ecosystems, but characteristics of fire regimes that have shaped these landscapes over long time scales are changing with climate change and human activities. In some places, changes in fire size, frequency, and severity threaten to degrade essential ecosystem services that produce clean air and water, fertile soil for crop and wood production, and habitat for plant and animal species. Hence, it is urgent to understand how both our actions and inactions contribute to the vulnerability of forest ecosystems and to develop management practices that help sustain and conserve vegetation and wildlife communities in vulnerable forest systems. Our project will address...
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California - one of the nation's most populous states - hosts extensive public lands, crown-jewel national parks, and diverse natural resources. Resource managers in federal, state, tribal, and local agencies face challenges due to environmental changes and extreme events such as severe droughts, heat waves, flood events, massive wildfires, and forest dieback. However, state-of-the-art research that could aid in the management of natural resources facing these challenges is typically slow to be applied, owing to limited time and capacity on the part of both researchers and managers. This project aims to accelerate the application of science to resource management by facilitating the translation and synthesis of...
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Indigenous peoples and nations are on the front lines of climate change impacts and are leading the way in innovative adaptation action, such as in the use of traditional burning. Traditional burning has been recognized as a robust adaptation strategy, increasing the resiliency of ecosystems and the local communities that depend on them for their economic and social well-being. Furthermore, implementing natural fire practices may help reduce the likelihood of catastrophic fires and increase ecosystem water holding capacity. Traditional burning may be applied singularly or as a complementary approach with other ecosystem restoration practices, such as thinning and prescribed burning. The overarching goal of this...
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Big sagebrush plant communities are important and widespread in western North America and are crucial for meeting long-term conservation goals for greater sage-grouse and other wildlife of conservation concern. Yet wildfire is increasing in the West, turning biodiverse, shrub-based ecosystems dominated by sagebrush into grasslands containing invasive species such as cheatgrass and less overall plant and animal diversity. These transformations negatively impact people and ecosystems by reducing habitat quality for wildlife and the aesthetic value of the landscape. Understanding how sagebrush communities are already responding and will continue to respond to changes in wildfire, invasive species, and climate is...
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The Pueblo de San Ildefonso is facing increased wildfire risk under climate change. Recent fires have not only burned culturally significant sites, but they have also resulted in a loss of watershed runoff retention, which has increased erosion and the transport of contaminated sediments and soils on Pueblo lands from the adjacent Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). A priority for the Pueblo is to ensure that wildfires are managed appropriately and, when large fires do occur, that effective measures are taken to control the aftermath of increased flooding and erosion. This project will build on the knowledge of elders and the community to develop a study plan (or study method) to evaluate different landscape...
We aimed to improve the scientific capacity to estimate climate extremes, evaluate their effects on natural resources, and enhance a platform for derivation of and access to customized climate information for the full extent of the Southwest. Extreme climate can have substantial effects on species, ecological and evolutionary processes, and the health of visitors to public lands. Researchers generally can specify the climate-extreme metrics, and the extents and resolutions of those metrics, most relevant to their scientific objectives and the practical applications of their work. However, such application-specific data rarely are available. We screened global climate models (GCMs) on the basis of their realism...
Abstract (from AGU100): Forest conservation and carbon sequestration efforts are on the rise, yet the long‐term stability of these efforts under a changing climate remains unknown. We generate nearly three decades of remotely sensed canopy water content throughout California, which we use to determine patterns of drought stress. Linking these patterns of drought stress with meteorological variables enables us to quantify spatially explicit biophysical drought resistance in terms of magnitude and duration. These maps reveal significant spatial heterogeneity in drought resistance and demonstrate that almost all forests have less resistance to severe, persistent droughts. By identifying the spatial patterning of biophysical...
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Despite the pandemic, Future of Fire postdoc Dr. Nina Fontana developed and contributed to a range of projects with cultural fire practitioners from 2021-2023. This funding will provide her an additional year to complete and grow projects started with partners as a Future of Fire fellow. Fontana’s work focuses on two broad areas: (1) improving best practices in teaching and learning about cultural fire, and (2) developing culturally relevant decision support tools to support cultural fire practitioners. Fontana will continue to develop and assess group experiential learning and practices that expand cultural fire education for different audiences. She will also continue her collaborations with tribal partners...
Abstract (from SpringerLink): This paper presents the first record of fire in Pacific coast salt marshes; the 1993 Green Meadows Fire and the 2013 Camarillo Springs Fire burned an area of Salicornia-dominated salt marsh at Point Mugu, CA. These fires inspire concern about resiliency of ecosystems not adapted to fire, already threatened by sea-level rise (SLR), and under stress from extreme drought. We monitored vegetation percent cover, diversity, and soil organic carbon (SOC) in burned and unburned areas of the salt marsh following the 2013 Camarillo Springs Fire and used remotely sensed Normalized Vegetation Difference Index (NDVI) analysis to verify the in situ data. Two years following the fire, vegetation percent...
Abstract (from PNAS): North Pacific jet stream (NPJ) behavior strongly affects cool-season moisture delivery in California and is an important predictor of summer fire conditions. Reconstructions of the NPJ before modern fire suppression began in the early 20th century identify the relationships between NPJ characteristics and precipitation and fire extremes. After fire suppression, the relationship between the NPJ and precipitation extremes is unchanged, but the NPJ–fire extremes relationship breaks down. Simulations with high CO2 forcing show higher temperatures, reduced snowpack, and drier summers by 2070 to 2100 whether overall precipitation is enhanced or reduced, thereby overriding historical dynamic NPJ precursor...
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Sagebrush steppe is one of the most widely distributed ecosystems in North America. Found in eleven western states, this important yet fragile ecosystem is dominated by sagebrush, but also contains a diversity of native shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants. It provides critical habitat for wildlife like pronghorn and threatened species such as the greater sage-grouse, and is grazed by livestock on public and private lands. However, this landscape is increasingly threatened by shifts in wildfire patterns, the spread of invasive grasses, and changing climate conditions. While sagebrush is slow to recover after fires, non-native grasses such as cheatgrass thrive in post-fire conditions and the spread of these species...
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The California Coast has hundreds of tree groves where dual management practices aim to reduce the risk of fire and to conserve habitat for overwintering monarch butterflies. As the climate changes, longer high-intensity droughts can increase mortality and/or limb loss in grove trees which causes an accumulation of fire-prone fuels. Moreover, these trees provide the critical habitat for overwintering monarch butterflies. Every year only certain trees in certain groves accumulate clusters of thousands of monarch butterflies. Should trees die or important roosting branches collapse, monarchs may not return in the future. The overall goal of this project is to understand how the dual management goals of fire management...
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Wildfire burn areas are increasing in the western U.S., a change that has been linked to increased fuel aridity caused by climate change. Recognizing that there will likely be even more large fires in the future presents an opportunity to prepare and adapt to the expected climatic changes. This project addresses three key science questions: 1) Is there a specific level (threshold) of fuel aridity below which large fires more likely, and levels of temperature and humidity that don’t change how these fires begin and spread? 2) if there is a fuel aridity threshold, how often has that level been exceeded in the past? 3) Do climate models predict this threshold will be exceeded more or less often in the future? ...
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Millions of acres of California’s forest cover have been lost due to severe wildfire and drought mediatedinsect outbreaks. These acres may not grow back as forests without management action, which could negatively impact carbon sequestration, access to clean drinking water, wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities. Various factors, including limited regeneration potential, hotter and more extreme climatic conditions, and the threat of reburning hinder forest recovery. In recent year researchers have developed numerous tools and resources to help forest managers prioritize where to reforest, and how to implement climate-adaptive strategies. However, forest managers lack the time and resources to review each...
Sea‐level rise (SLR) impacts on intertidal habitat depend on coastal topology, accretion, and constraints from surrounding development. Such habitat changes might affect species like Belding's savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi; BSSP), which live in high‐elevation salt marsh in the Southern California Bight. To predict how BSSP habitat might change under various SLR scenarios, we first constructed a suitability model by matching bird observations with elevation. We then mapped current BSSP breeding and foraging habitat at six estuarine sites by applying the elevation‐suitability model to digital elevation models. To estimate changes in digital elevation models under different SLR scenarios, we...
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The complex mountain and valley chains of the Southwest exert a strong influence on precipitation and wind patterns. Atmospheric rivers deliver some of the most extreme precipitation events to west-southwest-facing slopes of the mountains where strong gusty downslope winds can also spread wildfires. Climate change is making the southwest warmer and dryer resulting in more fire-prone vegetation and more frequent and extreme atmospheric rivers. Understanding this changing system is critical for managing water resources and wildfire in the region. This project will study how climate change is impacting precipitation and winds to create fire weather and drive fire spread on heavily vegetated slopes of coastal mountains....
map background search result map search result map Improving the Success of Post-Fire Adaptive Management Strategies in Sagebrush Steppe Big Sagebrush Response to Wildfire and Invasive Grasses in the 21st Century Preventing Extreme Fire Events by Learning from History: The Effects of Wind, Temperature, and Drought Extremes on Fire Activity Improving and Accelerating the Application of Science to Natural Resource Management in California Landscape Management Practices on the Pueblo de San Ildefonso Indigenous-Led Climate Adaptation Strategies: Integrating Landscape Condition, Monitoring, and Cultural Fire with the North Fork Mono Tribe Assessing Vulnerability of Vegetation and Wildlife Communities to Post-Fire Transformations to Guide Management of Southwestern Pine Forests and Woodlands Cycles of Renewal: Returning Good Fire to the Chumash Homelands California Reforestation Management Toolshed: A Web-Based Dashboard of Integrating Existing Resources Modeling Large Fires in Response to Potential Tipping Points in Fuel Dryness Future of Fire Phase II: Learning by Doing with Cultural Fire Practitioners Reducing Wildfire Risk While Maintaining Critical Monarch Habitat Along the California Coast How do Atmospheric Rivers and Downslope Winds Affect Wildfire Risk and Water Resources in the Arid Southwest? Landscape Management Practices on the Pueblo de San Ildefonso Cycles of Renewal: Returning Good Fire to the Chumash Homelands Reducing Wildfire Risk While Maintaining Critical Monarch Habitat Along the California Coast Preventing Extreme Fire Events by Learning from History: The Effects of Wind, Temperature, and Drought Extremes on Fire Activity Improving and Accelerating the Application of Science to Natural Resource Management in California Indigenous-Led Climate Adaptation Strategies: Integrating Landscape Condition, Monitoring, and Cultural Fire with the North Fork Mono Tribe California Reforestation Management Toolshed: A Web-Based Dashboard of Integrating Existing Resources Future of Fire Phase II: Learning by Doing with Cultural Fire Practitioners Improving the Success of Post-Fire Adaptive Management Strategies in Sagebrush Steppe Assessing Vulnerability of Vegetation and Wildlife Communities to Post-Fire Transformations to Guide Management of Southwestern Pine Forests and Woodlands How do Atmospheric Rivers and Downslope Winds Affect Wildfire Risk and Water Resources in the Arid Southwest? Modeling Large Fires in Response to Potential Tipping Points in Fuel Dryness Big Sagebrush Response to Wildfire and Invasive Grasses in the 21st Century