spatial optimization

Increasing impacts from wildfires are reshaping fire policies worldwide, with expanded investments in a wide range of fuel reduction strategies. In many fire prone regions, especially in the Mediterranean basin, fuel management programs have relied on fuel break networks for decades to facilitate fire suppression and reduce area burned and damage.

We developed and applied a spatial optimization algorithm to prioritize forest and fuel management treatments within a proposed linear fuel break network on a 0.5 million ha Western US national forest.

Active forest restoration programs on western US national forests face multiple challenges to meet their broad ecological goals while designing projects that generate sufficient revenue to build and maintain private forest management capacity needed to expand the scale and scope of treatments.

We modeled forest restoration scenarios to examine socioeconomic and ecological trade-offs associated with alternative prioritization scenarios. The study examined four US national forests designated as priorities for investments to restore fire resiliency and generate economic opportunities to support local industry.

We used spatial optimization to analyze alternative restoration scenarios and quantify tradeoffs for a large, multifaceted restoration program to restore resiliency to forest landscapes in the western US. Wespecifically examined tradeoffs between provisional ecosystem services, fire protection, and the amelioration of key ecological stressors.