Adaptive Management & Effectiveness Monitoring Intermountain and Northern Regions, Rocky Mountain Research Station 06/06/01 Introduction: On March 15, 2001, a Steering Group (Mike Paterni, NFP Leader for R1/4, Cindy Swanson, R1 Director of Watershed, Wildlife, Fisheries, Rare Plants; Bob Schrenk, R1 Director, Forest and Range; John Palmer, R4 Director, Vegetation Management; Bill Burbridge, R4 Director, Biophysical Resources; Dean Knighton, RMRS Assistant Station Director; and Kerry McMenus, R1 Assessment and Monitoring) reviewed an Adaptive Management and Monitoring Strategy and identified critical areas of focus. (See 03/14/01 document and proposals as background.) Subsequent meetings and conference calls further refined and developed the proposals culminating in reviews and approvals on May 15 and 22. These are noted in the following table. Date Task March 27 Members of the Steering group met and modified the tentative funding amounts and added an additional step to further narrow and prioritize the "watershed, soils and riparian" area. April 5 and 10 Steering Group members checked the status of the groups, feasibility of the process and progress. The "Invasive Weeds" and "Social" are proceeding, and more discussion was to occur among co-leads for the "Native Seed." The screening of the "Watershed, Soils, and Riparian" area was completed and Ken Heffner briefed the group. The priorities and applicable proposals are included in the following watershed section. May 15 Steering Group reviewed the Soil, Water, Riparian group of proposals and the Invasive Species approach. Both were approved at the original estimate of funding. May 22 Steering Group reviewed the Social proposals and the Native Seed revegetation monitoring proposals. The social design effort was approved with more to follow once design(s) are complete; the Thomas proposal was approved although members wanted the biological components to be addressed through other biological work. The Native Seed monitoring proposals were approved. Continued oversight of the adaptive management and monitoring proposals was discussed. The Steering Group endorsed maintaining the co-leads in a continued role as contacts and coordinators. The Steering Group will continue overall monitoring of progress. Sept. 30 Need progress report from proposals on their implementation. Provide to Co-leads and Steering Group. The following are the "critical areas of focus," the principles of the strategy, and the approved proposals. Critical Areas of Focus: Watershed, Soils, and Riparian Invasive Weeds Social Native seed application and effectiveness in revegetation Key Principles with this R1/R4 and Research Partnership Approach: This monitoring or study focuses on the effects, responses or rehabilitation efforts to the 2000 wildfires. Areas of study or monitoring were selected based upon the need for knowledge, the implications to management, (e.g., areas of large expenditure of effort where monitoring the effectiveness of treatments are needed), and from the findings of the Fire Assessment and what is known about the conditions and trends of the lands affected by the fires. Findings should be applicable across the two-Region geographic area. Consider stratification and sampling to acquire the data. The partnership is envisioned to engage Research scientists and NFS personnel in the design of the study or monitoring; engagement of field personnel in collection of data and/or awareness of the efforts; and publication and application of key scientific findings. This is a one-time funding and could be spread over 3-5 years. Watershed, Soils, and Riparian Co-Leads: Jim Clayton, RMRS Ken Heffner, R4 Funding: $2.7 million Background and Questions: Eleven subbasins were identified as high risk (high and moderate severity burns, high potential for substantial alteration of hydrologic and geomorphic processes, and small, isolated, and/or depressed populations of native fish). Those fire-affected subbasins with fully functioning watershed processes and strong populations of native fish (are assumed to) persist and recover (low risk). (Fire Assessment, pg. 1-19-20). Investments in post-fire rehabilitation treatments include approximately $20 million for road management; $11 million for watershed improvement; $1.5 million for fish habitat, and BAER treatments. Key Question 1:  Are treatments effective at the watershed scale? Specifically: How much sediment is generated by a given watershed following a fire? Do erosion mitigation measure reduce watershed sediment yields and affect riparian areas following fire? Are the current types and levels of BAER treatments meeting the agency objectives including protection of downstream life, property, and water quality? Does salvage logging affect sediment yield from small watersheds? Key Question 2:   How are riparian systems affected by wildfire, particularly where fire has been excluded in the past? Can we manage riparian to achieve riparian management objectives? Key Question 3:   What are the short and long-term effects of fires on stream ecosystems? Are effects of fire predictable? What is the structure and character of aquatic habitats and what is the successional pattern in response to disturbance by fire? How does fire suppression, thinning, and prescribed fire mimic natural succession patterns? Key Question 4:  How does the continuity of water repellency vary with soil properties? How does water repellency decay over time? How does information about continuity of repellency help to better plan, implement, and maintain BAER activities and projects? Key Question 5:  Does fire favor non-native fish through expansion and/or displacement of native fishes? What are the systems at risk? Do context issues such as connectivity, isolation, location within a watershed, gene flow, etc. matter in terms of risk of extinction? Key Question 6:  What are the dominant processes that influence soil erosion, productivity, water yield, etc? Does fire accelerate these processes? How are these processes influenced by existing uses (e.g., grazing) and how do management and uses need to adapt? Key Question 7:   Are predictive indicators in a standard regional model accurate in determining peak discharge and other flooding and debris-flow hazards? (Head water mass erosion and floods emphasis) Proposals (tied to key questions) selected and funded: No. Title Lead Scientist or Manager Funding Duration   Overall technology transfer of the following studies. Kerry Overton, RMRS $88,878 '01 - '05 1 Monitoring effectiveness of post-fire rehabilitation treatments at small watershed scales Pete Robichaud, RMRS $473,000 '01 - '05 2a Monitoring post-fire riparian salvaging impacts to fish habitats Beth Gardner, Flathead NF $11,700 '01 2b Riparian forest and LWD relationships in burned and unburned riparian Sherry Wollrab, Kerry Overton, RMRS $197,161 '01 - '04 2c Fire effects on non-riverine habitats and amphibians Gina Lampman, R4 $225,000 '01 - '04 2d Fire effects on amphibians and their aquatic habitats Dave Pilliod, RMRS $142,139 '01 - '03 3a Effects of fire on the structure and character of aquatic habitats Jim Clayton, RMRS $148,648 '01 - '03 3b Workshop on fire and aquatic ecosystems Bruce Rieman, RMRS $76,500 '01 - '03 3c Development of risk assessment tools for reintroducing fire and BAER implementation Alan Barta, RMRS $141,120 '01 - '03 4 On the decay of downslope conitinuity of post-fire water repellency and its influence on BAER treatment effectiveness Charles Luce, RMRS Tom Clifford, Boise NF $229,600 '01 - '05 5 Does fire favor non-native fish (key question 5) Michael Young, RMRS $170,254 '01 - '05 6 Key processes that influence soil erosion and soil productivity (Key question 6) Debbie Page-Dumroese, RMRS $586,000 '01 - '05 7 Soil and water flows: Are predictive indicators in a standard Regional model accurate in determining peak discharge and other flooding and debris-flow hazards from recently burned basins? Susan Cannon, USGS Bob Wintergerst, Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF $210,000 '01 - '02   Total: $2,700,000   Invasive Weeds Team Members: Steve Sutherland, RMRS - Co-Lead Lou Kuennen, Kootenai NF - Co-Lead Nancy Shaw, RMRS Kurt Johnson, R4 Jim Olivarez, R1 Diane Schuldt, Salmon-Challis NF Funding: 600,000 Background and Questions: Invasive plant species are one of the greatest threats to wildlands in the United States. Disturbance creates conditions that are favorable for exotic species invasion of native plant communities. These conditions include increased bare soil, reduced competition, and increased light and nutrient levels. The fires of 2000 created these conditions on nearly 1.5 million acres in the Northern and Intermountain Regions. Therefore, the fires of 2000 have set the stage for an unprecedented expansion of established weeds and invasion of new weed species. This could lead to altered plant and animal communities, altered successional pathways, altered fire regimes, reduced or eliminated TES species, and reduced herbivore carrying capacities. The extent and importance of this threat was recognized in An Assessment of the 2000 Fire Season in the Northern and Intermountain Regions; it was estimated that nearly 460,000 acres of state and national forests and grasslands may be vulnerable to post-fire weed invasion, and proposed nearly $17 million in weed treatment funds in 2001 and $5 million in 2002-05. This represents the second largest funding project in 2001 (20 percent) and the third largest funding project for the next five years (10 percent). The study will examine the interaction between wildfire and weeds with the goal of improving the efficiency of weed detection and effectiveness of weed control on burned wildlands. We will concentrate on three general questions: Have wildfires and fire suppression resulted in new invasive species (e.g. yellow star thistle, rush skeleton weed, orange hawk weed, meadow hawk weed, tansy ragwort)? Are the weed responses predicted in Fire Assessment accurate (i.e. roaded dry, open forest, dry shrubland and grassland communities most susceptible to invasive weeds)? Are invasive plant treatments effective? Proposals selected and funded: No. Title Lead Scientist or Manager Funding Duration 1 New invasive species detection and eradication on the Bitterroot, Helena, Kootenai, and Salmon-Challis NFs. Steve Sutherland, RMRS     2 Predicted weed response using data from the Bitterroot, Helena, Kootenai, and Salmon-Challis NFs. Steve Sutherland, RMRS     3 Weed treatment effectiveness - testing monitoring methodologies on the Bitterroot, Helena, Kootenai, and Salmon-Challis NFs. Steve Sutherland, RMRS       Funding for the above three proposals is as follows:         Fire Lab Steve Sutherland, RMRS $519,000 '01-'05   Nez Perce NF Leonard Lake $1,000     Kootenai NF Lou Kuennen $40,000     Salmon-Challis Diane Schuldt $40,000     Total: $600,000   Social Team Members: Cindy Swanson, R1 - Co-lead Dan Williams, RMRS - Co-lead Kerry McMenus, R1 Cynthia Manning, R1 Olleke Rappe-Daniels, R1 Bob Schrenk, R1 Funding: $500,000 Background and Questions: Fire management and suppression policies over the past 20 years have evolved in response to greater understanding of the ecological role of fire and the impact of fire suppression on ecosystems and human communities. At the same time, however, residential development and other human activities have increased in and around forest areas, exacerbating the risk to property and human well-being, and narrowing fire management options. The success of any effort to prevent catastrophic fires or restore and rehabilitate forest ecosystems depends on public understanding, acceptance, and cooperation. The problem, however, goes beyond merely enhancing public understanding of fire. The challenge of living with wildland fire requires careful and close coordination of agency fire and vegetation management efforts with local communities and non-federal landowners as well as programs to strengthen community institutions and organizations to manage fire risk. Yet we have very little systematic knowledge on the social and institutional factors that influence individual, community, and institutional capacities to understand and manage fire risk, minimize fire impacts, and respond effectively to wildland fires when they do occur. In order for Regions 1 and 4 to implement their fire plans information is needed on understanding fire management at individual and community scales. Specifically, information is needed on: How individuals and communities understand and respond to fire risk, the ecological role of fire, ecosystem rehabilitation, fuel management, and existing and emerging fire management strategies; Community infrastructure and economic characteristics to understand cost and benefits of structure protection, the effects of fire on economic sectors of the community, and the cost and benefits of fire suppression; The design of recovery and rehabilitation efforts that engage and strengthen the economic and social capacities of community organizations, businesses, and governments to effectively live in and with fire-prone ecosystems and to contribute to effective fire management; and How to communicate such knowledge to communities at the wildfire interface. Proposals selected and funded: No. Title Lead Scientist or Manager Funding Duration 1 Phase 1: Design of common human dimensions data collection and monitoring protocol.(May 15 - June 30, 2001 Dan Williams, RMRS; Cindy Swanson, R1 $25,000 '01 2 Phase 2: Implementation teams collect, analyze, and report findings. Protocol design team will meet at end of first year of this phase to evaluate the effectiveness of the protocol, make revisions and plan for monitoring community/citizen responses. (July 1, 2001 - June 30,2005)   TBD '01-'05 3a Economic/Policy comparisons of salvage operations on State Trust Lands and National Forest Lands Coordinator of 3a and 3b - Les Marcum, UM Policy/Economics - Hayley Hesseln, Jack Ward Thomas, UM TBD   3b Monitoring of biological effects comparing areas from which burned trees are salvaged versus where no salvage activities occur. Such monitoring could be extended to State Trust lands that were subjected to salvage operations to provide comparisons that would be useful in addressing economic/policy comparisons in the first section.   TBD   Native Seed Application and Revegetation Effectiveness Team Members: Durant McArthur, RMRS - Co-Lead Jim Olivarez, R1 - Co-Lead John Fairchild, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Larry Holzworth Loren St. John Dan Ogle, NRCS Steve Shelly, R1 Susan Rinehart, R1 Potential Funding: $200,000 Background and Questions: Regions 1 and 4 jointly agreed to fund native seed production for revegetation of burned areas. The following are the questions to be addressed: Primary questions:   Is seeding with native seeds effective? Do we need to seed or would enough native colonized in the first year? Does native seeding help prevent noxious weed spread? Is native seeding effective in prevention of erosion? Are there any additional questions, and/or clarification of the study questions as proposed? What was the pre-fire vegetation condition of the study sites? Were invasive plants already present in the area? If so, could the study be designed in part to examine the effectiveness of treatments in suppressing weed spread? What species were used for the revegetation treatments, in what amounts, and what were the seedbed preparation and application methods used? Do you know to what degree the techniques were successful to date? What fire intensities existed in the treated area(s)? If variable, can the study examine variation in response to the treatments based on burn intensity? What sites (landscape settings) and vegetation types were involved in the treatment areas? Are there nearby untreated areas that could serve as controls if needed? Has a protocol for data collection been developed? Can the Adaptive Monitoring native species revegetation focus team review such protocol(s), and offer suggestions regarding study design and potential for broadening the applicability of the study? Proposals selected and funded: No. Title Lead Scientist or Manager Funding Duration 1 Evaluation of Post-Fire Rehabilitation Using Native Plants in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Adjacent Lands. Beth Hodder, Flathead NF $65,300 '01-'04 2 Revegetation Implementation Monitoring Needs Adjacent to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Dick Wenger, Salmon-Challis NF $30,000 '01-'04 3 Additional solicited proposal with revegetation and monitoring in the "big fire 2000" forests (Bitterroot, Helena and Salmon/Challis in Non-Wilderness Areas) or other forests willing to facilitate a monitoring study with appropriate introductory NRCS Plant Materials literature review. Jim Olivarez, R1 Dan Ogle, NRCS Larry Holzworth, NRCS $50,700 '01-'04 4 Assist with publication of the RMRS General Technical Report, "Restoring Western Ranges and Wildlands," a handbook for restoration of the Inland West (Steve Monsen and Richard Stevens, compilers and principal authors). This is a how-to manual with chapters Physical Factors, Plant Control and Competition (including fire), Seedbed Preparation and Seeding, Biological Factors (including wildlife habitat, nutrition, plant diseases, and management of restored sites), Guidelines, Species Adaptability, Seed Characteristics and Production (including germination and regulatory laws), and Plant Culture. (Note: The primary objective of the Native Species Monitoring Task is to highlight and assist in implementation efficiency and effectiveness. This text is the culmination of 30 years worth of experience in what works in the Inland West. The transfer of this technology and experience will greatly help in meeting our objective.) Steve Monsen, RMRS $54,000 '01-'04   Total: $200,000

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