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The area burned by wildfires has increased in recent decades and is expected to increase in the future for many watersheds worldwide due to climate change. Burned areas within watersheds increase soil erosion rates, which can increase the downstream accumulation of sediment in rivers and reservoirs. Using an ensemble of climate, fire, and erosion models, we show that post-fire sedimentation is projected to increase for more than ¾ of watersheds by at least 10 % and for more than ¼ of watersheds by at least 100 % by the 2041 to 2050 decade in the western USA. In this region, 65 % of the water supply originates from forested lands that are prone to wildfire, and many of the watersheds with projected increases in sedimentation...
Public Summary: The area burned by wildfires is expected to increase in many watersheds of the world over the next century as a function of climate change. Increased sedimentation due to soil erosion in burned watersheds can negatively impact downstream aquatic ecosystems and the quality and supply of water. At least 65% of the water supply in the western USA originates in watersheds covered by trees, shrubs, and/or grasses that are prone to wildfire16. Understanding how changing fire frequency, extent, and location will affect watersheds, reservoirs, and the ecosystem services they supply to communities is therefore of great societal importance. A primary threat to socio-ecological systems in this region from...
Abstract (from http://www.publish.csiro.au/WF/WF16165): Interannual variability in burn severity is assessed across forested ecoregions of the western United States to understand how it is influenced by variations in area burned and climate during 1984–2014. Strong correlations (|r| > 0.6) between annual area burned and climate metrics were found across many of the studied regions. The burn severity of individual fires and fire seasons was weakly, but significantly (P < 0.05), correlated with burned area across many regions. Interannual variability in fuel dryness evaluated with fuel aridity metrics demonstrated weak-to-moderate (|r| >0.4) relationships with regional burn severity, congruent with but weaker than...
Forests strongly influence snow processes and affect the amount and duration of snow storage on a landscape. Therefore, forest changes, from management activities or natural disturbances, have important consequences for spring and summer soil moisture availability, aquatic habitat, and water supply. Accounting for these effects of forest change on watersheds will become even more important under warming climate conditions, which will reduce the amount and duration of snow storage. In this webinar, Susan E. Dickerson-Lange presents on Northwest Climate Science Center supported research that led to the creation of a conceptual model that paired relevant spatial datasets for considering the combined impacts of forest...
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This project identifies priority areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion to implement conservation strategies for riverine and riparian habitat. This is tailored towards the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) conservation goals and objectives, and provides the foundation for adaptation to a changing climate. This project adopts a “zoned” approach to identifying focal areas, connectivity management zones and zones for riparian habitat and ecological representation. Through a series of workshops and webinars, the ALI articulated its freshwater conservation goals and targets. Key aspects of these goals included: a focus on non-anadromous salmonid (salmon and steelhead) species, include riparian birds and waterfowl as key...
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This is a set of scripts developed by Madeline Steele in 2013 as a part of the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) spatial prioritization analysis. They are provided here both as methodological documentation and because they may be useful for other projects. They are not set up to be imported into an ArcGIS toolbox, and all path names would have to be changed before they could be used. They are commented, and variables should be at the top, but they are probably not very useful without a bit of previous Python experience. Please feel free to use and/or splice and dice these scripts, and contact Madeline if you have any questions. Madeline Steele GIS Specialist U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacific Region/SWCA madeline_steele@fws.gov,...
The Pacific Region National Wildlife Refuge System will develop a strategic approach to identify region-wide land/habitat conservation priorities. This approach will be piloted in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion and will result in a high-level landscape-scale conservation design. Working closely with conservation partners in the region, we will develop a data management and analysis model that builds from existing data sets and can be shared easily with other partners.
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This project identifies priority areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion to implement conservation strategies for riverine and riparian habitat. This is tailored towards the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) conservation goals and objectives, and provides the foundation for adaptation to a changing climate. This project adopts a “zoned” approach to identifying focal areas, connectivity management zones and zones for riparian habitat and ecological representation. Through a series of workshops and webinars, the ALI articulated its freshwater conservation goals and targets. Key aspects of these goals included: a focus on non-anadromous salmonid (salmon and steelhead) species, include riparian birds and waterfowl as key...
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The layers in this map service represent 4 different version of the final ALI Marxan model. Selection frequency layers show how often each hexagon was selected over 100 runs of a specific version. The "Best Solution" is not a perfect solution, but simply the best scoring solution out of 100 runs for each version.
Abstract (from http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3955/046.089.0305): It is hypothesized that climate impacts forest mosaics through dynamic ecological processes such as wildfires. However, climate-fire research has primarily focused on understanding drivers of fire frequency and area burned, largely due to scale mismatches and limited data availability. Recent datasets, however, allow for the investigation of climate influences on ecological patch metrics across broad regions independent of area burned and at finer scale. One area of particular interest is the distribution of fire refugia within wildfire perimeters. Although much recent research emphasis has been placed on high-severity patches within wildfires,...
Abstract (from http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/21/1/2017/): The phase of precipitation when it reaches the ground is a first-order driver of hydrologic processes in a watershed. The presence of snow, rain, or mixed-phase precipitation affects the initial and boundary conditions that drive hydrological models. Despite their foundational importance to terrestrial hydrology, typical phase partitioning methods (PPMs) specify the phase based on near-surface air temperature only. Our review conveys the diversity of tools available for PPMs in hydrological modeling and the advancements needed to improve predictions in complex terrain with large spatiotemporal variations in precipitation phase. Initially, we review...
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PCIC offers statisically downscaled daily climate scenarios, at a gridded resolution of 300 arc-seconds (0.0833 degrees, or roughly 10 km) for the simulated period of 1950-2100. The variables available include minimum temperature, maximum temperature, and precipitation. These downscaling outputs are based on Global Climate Model (GCM) projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and historical daily gridded climate data for Canada.​​ Statistical properties and spatial patterns of the downscaled scenarios are based on this gridded observational dataset, which represents one approximation of the actual historical climate. Gridded values may differ from climate stations and biases may...
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Climate change is projected to cause earlier and less snowmelt, potentially reducing water availability for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and for municipal and agricultural water supplies. However, if forested landscapes can be managed to retain snow longer, some of these environmental and financial impacts may be mitigated. Results from our research team demonstrate that in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), opening dense forest canopies through creating forest gaps will generally lead to more snow accumulation and later melt (i.e., up to 13 weeks later). However, under certain conditions, such as locations on ridges with high wind speeds and sunny south-facing slopes, the snow that accumulated in the forest is...
Abstract (from http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/15/01/JCOM_1501_2016_A01): Whereas the evolution of snow cover across forested mountain watersheds is difficult to predict or model accurately, the presence or absence of snow cover is easily observable and these observations contribute to improved snow models. We engaged citizen scientists to collect observations of the timing of distributed snow disappearance over three snow seasons across the Pacific Northwest, U.S.A. . The primary goal of the project was to build a more spatially robust dataset documenting the influence of forest cover on the timing of snow disappearance, and public outreach was a secondary goal. Each year's effort utilized a different strategy, building...
map background search result map search result map ALI Marxan Analysis Results WMS ALI spatial prioritization python scripts Forest Management Tools to Maximize Snow Retention under Climate Change Approved DataSets Statistically down-scaled climate scenarios for the simulated period of 1950-2100 for the Northwest US and British Columbia, Canada 2017 Spatial Conservation Priorities for Riverine and Riparian Systems In the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion ALI Priority areas as linear networks (Figure 12) ALI Marxan Analysis Results WMS ALI spatial prioritization python scripts 2017 Spatial Conservation Priorities for Riverine and Riparian Systems In the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion ALI Priority areas as linear networks (Figure 12) Statistically down-scaled climate scenarios for the simulated period of 1950-2100 for the Northwest US and British Columbia, Canada Forest Management Tools to Maximize Snow Retention under Climate Change