Skip to main content

Person

Mark Schwartz

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
A series of three research briefs intended to communicate ecosystems' general physical appearance and summarize critical processes that serve a myriad of ecological functions relevant to keeping these forests and woodlands intact. The briefs are intended to help communicate example desirable conditions for managers' and private landowners' use. The series includes briefs on blue oak woodlands, ponderosa pine forests, and coastal redwood forests; each brief characterizes healthy forest attributes, their ecological function, and key stressors affecting forest health.
Abstract Agencies are busy within California developing prioritization strategies to increase the pace and scale of forest treatment in an effort to reduce damage to ecosystems and people by large severe wildfire. A tacit assumption of this effort is that building forest resilience to wildfire will resolve California's extreme wildfire challenge. Specifically, the management focus is on coniferous forests where there is abundant evidence of increased tree density and a history of timber production. However, much of the state is covered by non-forested ecosystems, which is also where a lot of structure loss has occurred. We use more than twenty years of wildfire data in California to identify the relative proportion...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
A factsheet overviewing the threats CA’s forests face from climate-driven factors, and the CA Climate Hub’s role in supporting forest resiliency.
View more...
ScienceBase brings together the best information it can find about USGS researchers and offices to show connections to publications, projects, and data. We are still working to improve this process and information is by no means complete. If you don't see everything you know is associated with you, a colleague, or your office, please be patient while we work to connect the dots. Feel free to contact sciencebase@usgs.gov.