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Adaptive Management and Monitoring Project Category: Watershed, Soils, and Riparian Project Leader: Charlie Luce Participating Forests/Grassland Contacts: T.J. Clifford (Boise NF), Terry Hardy (Boise NF), Henry Shovic (Gallatin NF) Funds: Total Project Cost and Timeframe (1-5 years): 5 years: $229,600
Progress in 2001: At the Trail Creek Fire on the Boise National Forest in 2000, the second year of water repellency continuity measurements were made, precipitation gages were installed, and 200 log erosion barriers were surveyed in detail. All measurements have gone essentially as planned. In addition, a storm struck the area in which we did repellency measurements and in which log barriers were installed, and we were able to assess the effectiveness of the barriers following this severe thunderstorm. Unfortunately, the spatial extent of the storm was small enough to miss our precipitation gages and the gages installed by another R1/R4 project. We have the date and will be getting precipitation data from the Boise weather radar. New transects were installed at the Fridley Fire (Gallatin NF, 2001) on soils of volcanic origin, with a finer grain size distribution. Fire intensity and severity look similar to conditions at the Trail Creek sites. Preliminary results of Trail Creek work were presented at a Fire and Geomorphology meeting at Boise, Idaho in July, 2001. Results to date suggest that a relationship between the continuity of water repellency and the percentage of the soil finer than fine silt. Costs for this fiscal year were offset by appropriated funds from RWU-4353 that were used to enhance the project. Such funds will probably not be available in the future. Plans for 2002: The third year of water repellency continuity measurements will be made at Trail Creek and data for the second year will be collected at the Fridley Fire site. Log erosion barriers will be resampled for condition. Substantial lab work will be done to analyze soil differences among transects. Some continued assistance from the National Forests to allow access to research areas will be necessary. Minor help in logistics – such as providing trailer parking areas – would be helpful too. We would like to work with the cooperating forest contacts to review and potentially co-author papers. Products and/or tech transfer expected in 2002: We expect to complete papers and presentations on
The primary product expected from the study – a description of how the downslope continuity of water repellency decays over time – will not be completed until all five years of data are collected; however, we will try to provide information to the field as we learn about changes. For example, following the storms at Trail Creek this year, there was an approximately 30-50 percent reduction in water repellency because the water-repellent layers were washed down the slope. More analysis will need to be done on the spatial relationships of those changes (e.g. upslope areas may still be water repellent, while downslope areas have lost repellency). As we learn more about the effectiveness of the log barriers as related to the continuity of repellency, that information will also be released. Some estimate of these results can be modeled and will be put into papers this year; however, it is always nicer if we can actually see what happens on the ground, so we have allowed for multiple years for a severe storm to occur.
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