Reducing Fire Hazards and Sustaining Water Flows

Adaptability is a guiding principle for students in our forest resources and rangeland ecology and management programs. This frame of mind is critical in looking for smarter ways to reduce fire hazards while sustaining water flows and quality, particularly in the Interior West, which is experiencing a seasonal drought. These conditions are depleting water resources used for agriculture and increasing the risk for catastrophic wildfires.

One common practice for reducing fire hazard risk is mechanical thinning or creation of gaps and fire breaks. Yet such forest treatments, especially in snow-dominated systems, can cause detrimental, increased snowmelt rates and peak flow increases. This leads to erosion, stream destabilization, and degradation of water quality and ecosystem health. With these risks, land managers are increasingly asking natural resource experts for help.

Impact

To solve these problems, Tim Link, CNR forest hydrologist, and his team are studying strategies for connecting basic forest snowmelt research to management needs. Link and University of Idaho graduate students Rob Lawler and Diana Carson, are developing modeling tools to improve understanding of radiation transfer where gaps and firebreaks are typically used as fuel treatments.

Their field study sites include a series of canopy gaps at flat locations near Moscow, in the Owyhee Mountains, and in the Kananaski Valley in the Canadian Rockies. Radiation will be recorded over one to two weeks at each site over several winter seasons. One of their goals is to use the model to develop a simple guidance tool for forest managers to develop scenarios for sustaining snowmelt runoff. But an even bigger objective is to create synergies between the forest hydrology, fire science, geospatial analysis and forest operations research programs in the college.

Funding Source

This project received an $84,000 McIntire-Stennis grant to initiate the research. The McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Program was established in 1962 to create a competitive forestry, natural resources and environmental grant program for research into a variety of forest-related concerns, including biodiversity.

Principal Contributors

Timothy E. Link
Associate Professor of Hydrology
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Rob Lawler
Graduate Student, Forest Resources

Diana Carson
Graduate Student, Forest Resources