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Development of Risk Matrices for Evaluating Climatic Change Responses of Forested Habitats

Year of Publication
2012
Publication Type

We present an approach to assess and compare risk from climate change among multiple species through a risk matrix, in which managers can quickly prioritize for species that need to have strategies developed, evaluated further, or watched. We base the matrix upon earlier work towards the National Climate Assessment for potential damage to infrastructures from climate change.

Topography, fuels, and fire exclusion drive fire severity of the Rim Fire in an old-growth mixed-conifer forest, Yosemite National Park, USA

Year of Publication
2015
Publication Type

The number of large, high-severity fires has increased in the western United States over the past 30 years due to climate change and increasing tree density from fire suppression. Fuel quantity, topography, and weather during a burn control fire severity, and the relative contributions of these controls in mixed-severity fires in mountainous terrain are poorly understood.

Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public and Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?

Year of Publication
2010
Publication Type

Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership.

Landscape Disturbance Dynamics

Year of Publication
2015
Publication Type

Disturbances are integral to ecological systems and affect landscapes across a wide range of scales. The causes of disturbance, the patterns and dynamics they produce, their ecological consequences are major research topics in landscape ecology.

Regional patterns of postwildfire streamflow response in the Western United States: The importance of scale-specific connectivity

Year of Publication
2017
Publication Type

Wildfires can impact streamflow by modifying net precipitation, infiltration, evapotranspiration, snowmelt, and hillslope run-off pathways. Regional differences in fire trends and postwildfire streamflow responses across the conterminous United States have spurred concerns about the impact on streamflow in forests that serve as water resource areas.

Megafires: an emerging threat to old-forest species

Year of Publication
2016
Publication Type

Increasingly frequent “megafires” in North America's dry forests have prompted proposals to restore historical fire regimes and ecosystem resilience. Restoration efforts that reduce tree densities (eg via logging) could have collateral impacts on declining old-forest species, but whether these risks outweigh the potential effects of large, severe fires remains uncertain.