Rachel A Loehman

Drivers of California’s changing wildfires: a state-of-the-knowledge synthesis

Over the past four decades, annual area burned has increased significantly in California and across the western USA. This trend reflects a confluence of intersecting factors that affect wildfire regimes. It is correlated with increasing temperatures and atmospheric vapour pressure deficit. Anthropogenic climate change is the driver behind much of this change, in addition to influencing other climate-related factors, such as compression of the winter wet season. These climatic trends and associated increases in fire activity are projected to continue into the future. Additionally, factors related to the suppression of the Indigenous use of fire, aggressive fire suppression and, in some cases, changes in logging practices...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation

Berry-producing plants, a key resource in Alaska Native communities, provide primary subsistence and have been integral to maintaining cultural cohesion, sense of place, and physical ties to the surrounding landscape. Despite the importance of berry-producing plants, relatively little is known about their vulnerability to changes in climate and environmental conditions. The dynamics of insect populations are strongly related to climate; however, very little is known about the insect pollinators of berry plants in Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems. This interaction between plants and pollinators is critical to plant communities and for providing fruit resources to Indigenous communities. Numerous plant species...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2022, Alaska, Alaska CASC, Alaska Natives and Corporations, Alaska Natives and Corporations, All tags... Arctic, Arctic, CASC, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Peoples, Landscapes, Landscapes, Other Wildlife, Other Wildlife, Plants, Plants, Projects by Region, Wildlife and Plants, Wildlife and Plants, Fewer tags

2013 Proposal: Developing management guidelines for creating resilient whitebark pine ecosystems in the northern Rocky Mountains using spatial simulation modeling

Landscape simulation modeling will be used to develop detailed management guidelines for restoring and sustaining whitebark pine under future climates, accounting for the principal stressors that threaten its persistence (exotic disease infections, mountain pine beetles, and fire exclusion policies). We will build on existing work, including the 2012 publication A Range-Wide Restoration Strategy for Whitebark Pine Forests and existing simulation areas within critical whitebark pine habitat. This project will create a robust and trans-boundary set of management tools for creating resistant and resilient whitebark pine forests within the Rocky Mountains, USA and Canada.

In ecosystems of the southwestern US intensifying wildfires and climatic shifts are causing widespread tree mortality and slowed recovery after fires. Ecological refugia are areas that retain intact biological features or ecological processes after disturbance. These refugia are essential for the survival of a wide array of species and communities and aid in ecosystem recovery by repopulating surrounding areas. Researchers supported by this Southwest CASC project are using complex ecological modeling to study the effects of changing climate and wildfire regimes on ecological refugia, to provide useful information for conservation planning. This study (a) identifies future refugia and the biological and physical...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2022, CASC, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Fire, All tags... Fire, Forests, Forests, Landscapes, Landscapes, Projects by Region, Science Tools for Managers, Science Tools for Managers, Southwest, Southwest CASC, Fewer tags

Modeling data for burn severity of the East Troublesome and Grizzly Creek for integration with post-fire debris flow in the upper Colorado River basin, USA

These data were compiled for/to provide an example and assess methods and results of pre-fire estimation of predicted differenced normalized burn ration (dNBR) for predicting post-fire debris flow hazard classification. Objective(s) of our study were to develop predictive models for burn severity, using variables of pre-fire conditions, for two large wildfires from 2020 in Colorado, USA. These data represent pre-fire predictions of post-fire differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR) as a proxy of burn severity and further understand pre-fire modeling of burn severity. These data were collected/created in the fire perimeters the East Troublesome Fire (10/14/2020 – 11/30/2020) and the Grizzly Creek Fire (8/10/2020...

Tags: Arapaho National Forest, Botany, Colorado, East Fork Troublesome Creek, East Troublesome Fire, All tags... Ecology, Estes Park, Forestry, Garfield County, Geography, Glenwood Canyon, Glenwood Springs, Granby, Grand County, Grand Lake, Grizzly Creek, Grizzly Creek Fire, Information Sciences, Kremmling, Remote Sensing, Rocky Mountain National Park, Soil Sciences, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), Water Resources, White River National Forest, biota, burn severity, dNBR, data release, debris flow, differenced normalized burn ratio, environment, fire damage, fire perimeters, fires, fuel, hazards, landslides, machine learning, modeling, post-fire differenced normalized burn ratio, post-fire hazard, pre-fire conditions, pre-fire estimation, pre-fire modeling, pre-fire predictions, predicted differenced normalized burn ration, predictive models, random forest modeling, remote sensing, volume of debris flow, water quality, wildfire, wildland fire, Fewer tags