Posts Tagged ‘Fire’
Assessing impacts of fire and post-fire mitigation on runoff and erosion from rangelands
View fact sheet. • Amplified runoff and erosion responses are most likely where fire increases bare ground to 50 to 60 percent and slopes exceed 15 percent. Extensive bare ground promotes accumulation of runoff and formation of high velocity concentrated flow, capable of entraining and transporting a high sediment load. • Runoff and erosion responses…
Read MoreA review of fire effects on vegetation and soils in the Great Basin region: Response and ecological site characteristics
View technical report. This review synthesizes the state of knowledge on fire effects on vegetation and soils in semi-arid ecosystems in the Great Basin Region, including the central and northern Great Basin and Range, Columbia River Basin, and the Snake River Plain. We summarize available literature related to: (1) the effects of environmental gradients, ecological…
Read MoreLong-term evidence for fire as an ecohydrologic threshold-reversal mechanism on woodland-encroached sagebrush shrublands
View article. We evaluated whether tree removal by burning can decrease late-succession woodland ecohydrologic resilience by increasing vegetation and ground cover over a 9-year period after fire and whether the soil erosion feedback on late-succession woodlands is reversible by burning. To address these questions, we employed a suite of vegetation and soil measurements and rainfall…
Read MoreFrost dynamics of sagebrush steppe soils
View article. Recent research has indicated that seeds may germinate too soon after fall sowing and seedlings suffer high mortality from frost during the winter. To help determine the length of germination delay needed to avoid seedling frost mortality and to help guide frost‐tolerance experiments, we analyzed fall to spring soil temperatures from 2010 to…
Read MoreShort-term impacts of tree removal on runoff and erosion from pinyon- and juniper-dominated sagebrush hillslopes
View article. Tree removal is often applied to woodland-encroached rangelands to restore vegetation and improve hydrologic function, but knowledge is limited regarding effects of tree removal on hydrologic response. This study used artificial rainfall and overland flow experiments (9-13 m2) and measures of vegetation and ground cover to investigate short-term (1-2 yr) responses to tree…
Read MoreCan wildfire serve as an ecohydrologic threshold-reversal mechanism on juniper-encroached shrublands?
View article. Our findings suggest that the biotic-to-abiotic shift and amplified cross-scale erosion occur where encroachment-induced bare ground exceeds 50–60% and bare gaps between plant bases frequently extend beyond 1 m. The trigger for amplified cross-scale erosion is formation of concentrated flow within the degraded intercanopy between trees. Burning in this study decreased ecohydrologic resilience of…
Read MorePublic perceptions of sagebrush ecosystem management: A longitudinal panel study of residents in the Great Basin, 2006-2010
View dissertation. The study uses data from a mail-back questionnaire sent to residents in 2006 and again in 2010. Overall, 698 respondents comprise the panel of interest. Results suggest landscape scale events such as wildfire, as well as agency management and outreach programs, had little influence on respondents’ perceptions of agencies or management options over…
Read MoreMeasuring regional economic impacts from wildfire: Case study of southeast Oregon cattle-ranching business
View report. A ranch-level economic model is linked to a social accounting matrix (SAM), a.k.a. LP-SAM, to investigate the impact of wildfire on the regional economy. This study is the expansion of Alevy and Harris (2008) with a stochastic wildfire model based on historical wildfire data. The LP-SAM model is used to estimate the impact…
Read MoreEstimating expected fire suppression cost savings due to vegetation management on pinyon pine and juniper invaded sagebrush rangelands
View conference proceeding. Wildfire suppression costs in the United States have increased steadily over the last decades (Stephens and Ruth 2005, Calkin et al. 2005, Gebert et al 2007, Westerling et al. 2006, GAO 2007), with related expenditures by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management exceeding a billion dollars per year in…
Read MoreRanching, invasive annual grasses, and the external costs of wildfire in Great Basin: A stochastic dynamic programming approach
View conference proceeding. The spread of invasive annual grasses and resulting escalation of wildfire frequency and severity pose a significant and growing threat to the economic and ecological viability of the rangelands in the Great Basin. While private ranchers have the option to limit the severity of wildfires through fuels removal treatments, few ranchers engage…
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