Fire & Fuels: awae research subject areas
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Wildland fires in the arid west create a cause for concern for many inhabitants and an area of interest for researchers. Wildfires dramatically change watersheds, yielding floods and debris flows that endanger water supplies, human lives, and valuable fish habitats. Fuel management is intended to mitigate the effects of wildfire but poses risks to water quality and aquatic habitat. AWAE scientists search for solutions for simultaneous restoration of forests and aquatic ecosystems. Although the problem is typically cast as a tradeoff between management actions like fuel reduction, fire suppression, and emergency stabilization versus wildfire, new ideas about appropriate |
| management response to wildfire require understanding how to build resilient ecosystems. There is a need for strategic restoration that addresses terrestrial as well as aquatic needs. |
featured Publications
Battaglia, M.; Rocca, M., Rhoades, C. and M.G. Ryan. 2010. Surface fuel loadings within mulching treatments in Colorado coniferous forests. Forest Ecology and Management doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.08.004
Collins, B.; Rhoades, C.; Battaglia, M.; and R. Hubbard. 2012. The effects of bark beetle outbreaks on forest development, fuel loads and potential fire behavior in salvage logged and untreated lodgepole pine forests. Forest Ecology and Management. 284: 260-268.
Fornwalt, Paula J.; Rhoades, Charles C. 2011. Rehabilitating slash pile burn scars in upper montane forests of the Colorado Front Range. Natural Areas Journal. 31(2): 177-182.
Rhoades, C. C.; Battaglia, M. A.; Rocca, M. E.; Ryan, M. G. 2012. Short- and medium-term effects of fuel reduction mulch treatments on soil nitrogen availability in Colorado conifer forests. Forest Ecology and Management. 276: 231-238.
Rhoades, Charles C.; Entwistle, Deborah; Butler, Dana. 2011. The influence of wildfire extent and severity on streamwater chemistry, sediment and temperature following the Hayman Fire, Colorado. International Journal of Wildfire Science. 20: 430-442.
featured Science
| Aquatic Ecology |
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Fire, Fuel Management, and Aquatic Ecosystems
Following fires, debris flows can impact municipal water supplies, homes, roads, and fish habitat. We strive to answer the following questions: 1) How are water supplies, fish, and riparian ecosystems affected by wildfire, 2) How do the impacts of wildfire differ from those of fuel management on water yield, water quality, flood risks, and fish, 3) How persistent are wildfire impacts, how much stream network do they affect at once, and what is the spatio-temporal scaling of fire effects, 4) Can we effectively mitigate after wildfires, and 5) How do we design restoration approaches to make landscapes and river networks resilient to major wildfires and make them compatible with wildfire use?
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| Climate Change & Stream Temperature |
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Climate Change & Wildfires: Effects on Stream Temperatures & Thermal Habitats
Temperature has an important influence on the distribution and abundance of stream organisms. A warming climate is expected to increase stream temperatures, but documentation of such increases is rare and usually limited to trend monitoring at a few sites. Broader understanding of climate effects on thermal characteristics of streams is needed to inform management strategies, but developing this understanding requires modeling techniques that provide valid interpolations between temperature measurement sites. Widespread use of digital temperature loggers provides abundant data in many places that may facilitate development of broad stream temperature models.
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| Other Resources |
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Aquatic Ecology