Collaborative Research: Spatial Dynamics of Burn Severity and Post-fire Recovery in the High Park Fire Burn Area

在过去的二十年里，美国西部经历了前所未有的野火时期，土地所有者和下游用水者都容易受到野火及其对侵蚀和水质的影响。2012年高公园火灾是科罗拉多历史上第二大火灾（超过35，000公顷烧毁），并在位于柯林斯堡北部和西部的公共和私人土地的荒地-城市界面燃烧，CO.这项研究将提供科罗拉多历史上第二大火灾的独特理解。 该奖项将使烧伤严重程度和火灾后恢复2012年高公园火灾的生物和物理动力学研究使用综合方法，结合国家生态观测站机载观测站（AOP）遥感仪器提供的高分辨率遥感和现场收集的数据。该奖项将提供资金，用于发展对空间复杂景观中火灾的生物和物理反应的综合理解。该研究有六个目标：（1）描述火灾后景观的特征，（2）调查火灾前景观条件对烧伤严重程度的影响，（3）检查火灾后生物反应，（4）检查火灾后物理反应，（5）对该高速缓存la Poudre流域的火灾影响进行综合生物和物理评估，（6）为未来AOP应用提供信息。其中两个（1 - 6）的方法目标，旨在制定战略，使用AOP数据来研究景观响应大的干扰，其余（2-5）的科学目标，了解控制烧伤的严重程度和火灾后的反应。关于正在恢复的景观的光谱、地形和森林结构质量的数据将有助于在一个共同的空间明确的三维框架内了解恢复的物理和生物过程。通过将航空遥感数据中的大量信息与实地监测相结合，该研究可以在仅凭实地测量无法做到的详细程度上检查空间和时间动态。生物和物理分析相结合将有助于了解植被变化与火灾后侵蚀和沉积模式之间的反馈。将实地和遥感数据集结合起来，将能够评估火灾的影响，提供对科学界和管理界有用的数据产品，并支持今后关于生态系统恢复的研究。一名博士后和两名研究生将充分参与这项研究，从而提高今后使用航空遥感数据的认识和能力。

The western United States has experienced an unprecedented period of wildfires in the last two decades, and both land owners and downstream water users are vulnerable to wildfire and its effects on erosion and water quality. The 2012 High Park Fire was the second largest fire in Colorado history (over 35,000 ha burned) and burned in a wildland-urban interface of public and private lands located north and west of Fort Collins, CO. This research will provide a unique understanding of the second largest fire in Colorado history. The award will enable studies of the biological and physical dynamics of burn severity and post-fire recovery 2012 High Park Fire using an integrative approach that combines high resolution remote sensing provided by the National Ecological Observatory Airborne Observatory (AOP) remote sensing instruments and in situ field collected data. The award will provide funds for developing an integrated understanding of the biological and physical responses to fire across a spatially complex landscape. The study has six objectives: (1) characterize the post-fire landscape, (2) investigate the effects of pre-fire landscape conditions on burn severity, (3) examine the post-fire biological response, (4) examine the post-fire physical response, (5) conduct an integrated biological and physical assessment of the fire impacts on the Cache la Poudre watershed, and (6) inform future AOP applications. Two of these (1 & 6) are methodological objectives aimed at developing strategies for using AOP data to examine landscape response to a large disturbance, and the remaining (2-5) are scientific objectives related to understanding controls on burn severity and post-fire response. The data on the spectral, topographic and forest structure qualities of the recovering landscape will facilitate an understanding of the physical and biological processes of recovery within a common spatially-explicit three-dimensional framework. By integrating the extensive information in the airborne remote sensing data with field monitoring, the research allows examination of spatial and temporal dynamics at a level of detail that would not be feasible with field measurements alone. The combined biological and physical analyses will facilitate understanding of the feedbacks between vegetation changes and post-fire erosion and deposition patterns. Combining the field and remote sensing datasets will allow an assessment of the impact of the fire, provide data products useful to the scientific and management communities, and support future research on ecosystem recovery. A postdoc and two graduate students will be fully integrated in the research, thus building awareness and capacity for using airborne remote sensing data in the future.