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Folders: ROOT > ScienceBase Catalog > National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers > Southwest CASC > FY 2023 Projects ( Show all descendants )

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Natural resource managers and researchers often need long-term averages of historical and future climate scenarios for their study area yet may not have the resources to make these summaries. This project will provide high quality, detailed maps of historical and projected future climate and hydrologic conditions for California and a finer scale version for southern California. The project will also assess the feasibility of expanding these reference data to the southwestern US and identify the most suitable online data portals for the public to view and analyze the data in support of local initiatives. The map products can be used to assess the impacts of ongoing climate change and to develop climate adaptation...
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Recently intensifying drought conditions have caused increased stress to non-native tamarisk vegetation across riparian areas of the San Carlos Apache Tribe (hereafter Tribe) and the Upper Gila River watershed in Arizona and New Mexico. This also increases wildfire risk in the area, making the removal of tamarisk vegetation a primary restoration and climate adaptation objective for the Tribe. The research from this project can improve the Tribe’s capacity to map tamarisk and other riparian vegetation, in addition to monitoring the relative condition and water stress of the vegetation in a timely manner. Specifically, the project will help identify where tamarisk is on the reservation and inform restoration actions...
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Despite the pandemic, Future of Fire postdoc Dr. Nina Fontana developed and contributed to a range of projects with cultural fire practitioners from 2021-2023. This funding will provide her an additional year to complete and grow projects started with partners as a Future of Fire fellow. Fontana’s work focuses on two broad areas: (1) improving best practices in teaching and learning about cultural fire, and (2) developing culturally relevant decision support tools to support cultural fire practitioners. Fontana will continue to develop and assess group experiential learning and practices that expand cultural fire education for different audiences. She will also continue her collaborations with tribal partners...
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Aspen is a highly valued tree species in western forests, but it has been declining due to drought, herbivory, and fire suppression. Fire suppression has contributed to aspen’s decline because post-fire environments provide more opportunities for aspen to regenerate, both by resprouting and by seed. Regeneration from seed in these post-fire settings is particularly valuable because it increases aspen population genetic diversity and resilience. However, natural seeding events are not common, and mortality rates for seedlings are quite high. Nursery-grown seedlings provide a promising alternative and an opportunity for assisted migration, but planting protocols have not been well developed and mortality rates for...
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The California Coast has hundreds of tree groves where dual management practices aim to reduce the risk of fire and to conserve habitat for overwintering monarch butterflies. As the climate changes, longer high-intensity droughts can increase mortality and/or limb loss in grove trees which causes an accumulation of fire-prone fuels. Moreover, these trees provide the critical habitat for overwintering monarch butterflies. Every year only certain trees in certain groves accumulate clusters of thousands of monarch butterflies. Should trees die or important roosting branches collapse, monarchs may not return in the future. The overall goal of this project is to understand how the dual management goals of fire management...
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Wildfire burn areas are increasing in the western U.S., a change that has been linked to increased fuel aridity caused by climate change. Recognizing that there will likely be even more large fires in the future presents an opportunity to prepare and adapt to the expected climatic changes. This project addresses three key science questions: 1) Is there a specific level (threshold) of fuel aridity below which large fires more likely, and levels of temperature and humidity that don’t change how these fires begin and spread? 2) if there is a fuel aridity threshold, how often has that level been exceeded in the past? 3) Do climate models predict this threshold will be exceeded more or less often in the future? ...
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The complex mountain and valley chains of the Southwest exert a strong influence on precipitation and wind patterns. Atmospheric rivers deliver some of the most extreme precipitation events to west-southwest-facing slopes of the mountains where strong gusty downslope winds can also spread wildfires. Climate change is making the southwest warmer and dryer resulting in more fire-prone vegetation and more frequent and extreme atmospheric rivers. Understanding this changing system is critical for managing water resources and wildfire in the region. This project will study how climate change is impacting precipitation and winds to create fire weather and drive fire spread on heavily vegetated slopes of coastal mountains....
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Natural resource managers often use weather and climate information to make land management decisions. While technological advancements in data acquisition and processing have led to more online, climate-based tools and databases, these tools often require resource managers to invest a substantial amount of time to use. To address these data access challenges, the project team was previously funded to collaborate with resource managers to design highly specialized, customizable climate reports that can be used to improve land management and decision making. A key finding of this previous research was that the data and time requirements of report generation were unique to each partner. Because of that, a codebase...
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In recent years, a number of catastrophic wildfires have fundamentally changed species composition and structure across a large area of the Sierra Nevada of California. These fires leave behind many large, severely burned patches of land where the majority of trees have died. To make informed management decisions, forest managers need to understand the long-term effects of these fires on vegetation recovery and fuel loading. Large patches without trees might not reforest on their own which can cause forest loss; and, high-severity fires may lead to other high-severity fires by increasing the amount of fuel available to burn. Such repeat fires could lower the odds of any postfire forest recovery. By including...
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Ecosystems respond to disturbances (such as wildfire) and changing climate in a variety of ways, including persistence, recovery, and reorganization into new combinations. Some species respond by migrating across the landscape over time, which allows them to keep up with changing climate. Many forests recover after wildfire by regenerating from seeds, and public land managers often assist these processes to help ecosystems recover. However, the success of all of these strategies depends on young plants (seedlings and saplings) surviving, often when exposed to harsh conditions following fires, including prolonged droughts, heat waves, and rising temperatures. In this project, researchers will study how well young...
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Managing water resources in arid regions is increasingly important in the face of more frequent droughts and desertification that is occurring with climate change. These challenges of climate change intersect with potential environmental contamination from naturally occurring sources and legacy human activity (such as mining) and create a need for sustainable land and water management planning solutions. This project aims to help create sustainability plans by involving and training the community and by making water resource data accessible and available. The project is a collaboration between the University of Arizona Indigenous Resilience Center, the Southwest Research Information Center, and local communities...
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The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people in the southwestern United States. Consistent water level declines in Colorado River Basin reservoirs have focused research attention on the long-term changes in winter precipitation and the timing of snowmelt and runoff. Research on how warming temperatures affect winter precipitation and spring snowmelt is ongoing, however, less attention has been given to changes in spring and summer precipitation which also affects water supply, plant growth, and competition between native and non-native plants, and, in turn affects wildfire dynamics and wildlife habitat. The amount and timing of summer precipitation is largely influenced by variation in the North American...
    map background search result map search result map Modeling Large Fires in Response to Potential Tipping Points in Fuel Dryness Understanding the Effects of Seasonal Precipitation Changes on Hydrology and Ecosystems in the Colorado River Basin Automating Custom Climate Reports to Support Natural Resource Management in the Southwest How Do Critical Life History Stages Limit Plant Adaptation to Changing Climate? The Role of Seedling and Sapling Survivorship in Ecosystem Resilience The Effects of Catastrophic Wildfires on Vegetation and Fuel Loads in the Sierra Nevada of California Future of Fire Phase II: Learning by Doing with Cultural Fire Practitioners Reducing Wildfire Risk While Maintaining Critical Monarch Habitat Along the California Coast Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present (Phase 2) Assessing Post-Fire Aspen Seedling Success on the Colorado Plateau Rendering High-Resolution Hydro-Climatic Data for Southern California How do Atmospheric Rivers and Downslope Winds Affect Wildfire Risk and Water Resources in the Arid Southwest? Cultivating Water Resilience with Indigenous Peoples in Arid Lands Cultivating Water Resilience with Indigenous Peoples in Arid Lands Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present (Phase 2) The Effects of Catastrophic Wildfires on Vegetation and Fuel Loads in the Sierra Nevada of California Automating Custom Climate Reports to Support Natural Resource Management in the Southwest How Do Critical Life History Stages Limit Plant Adaptation to Changing Climate? The Role of Seedling and Sapling Survivorship in Ecosystem Resilience Reducing Wildfire Risk While Maintaining Critical Monarch Habitat Along the California Coast Future of Fire Phase II: Learning by Doing with Cultural Fire Practitioners Understanding the Effects of Seasonal Precipitation Changes on Hydrology and Ecosystems in the Colorado River Basin Assessing Post-Fire Aspen Seedling Success on the Colorado Plateau Rendering High-Resolution Hydro-Climatic Data for Southern California How do Atmospheric Rivers and Downslope Winds Affect Wildfire Risk and Water Resources in the Arid Southwest? Modeling Large Fires in Response to Potential Tipping Points in Fuel Dryness