RAPID The American Fire: Evaluating the ecosystem impact of a master variable.

RAPID 美国之火：评估主变量对生态系统的影响。

• 批准号: 1450144
• 负责人: John Battles
• 金额: $ 3.99万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1450144&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; American; Fire; Evaluating; ecosystem

The ecology and management of wildfire in the American West poses a daunting challenge. This project takes advantage of a unique opportunity to directly measure the impacts of wildfire on forest health in the forests of the western United States. In 2013, the American Fire burned through 43 square miles of the Tahoe National Forest in California. In the process, it coincidentally burned through an existing research study that was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of fuel management on tree survival, new seedling establishment, ground vegetation, wildlife, and water quality and quantity after a fire, where the fire treatments were to be imposed later in a small-scale experimental mode. In fact, all the pre-fire measurements had just been completed on an extensive network of tree and fuel inventory plots that were both untreated and treated when the American Fire broke out. This new award will enable the re-measurement of all the plots immediately after the wildfire, but before planned salvage logging operations begin to test whether the fuel management treatments in fact moderated the fire effects and reduced the damage to the forests. This research will be conducted in the context of the prevailing management regime for National Forests in the West. And since it will be done in partnership with local federal and state forest managers, the results will immediately inform the future management of these forests. This circumstance also enables an exceptional learning and teaching opportunity. For example, focused workshops and webinars will be held to explain, discuss, and dissect the meaning of the results of this project for management and natural resources policy. Wildfires in the forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains tend to burn more intensely and larger than they have in the past. The consequences on ecosystem structure and function can be transformational. At the same time, harvest and thinning operations that could reduce fire risks raise concerns about impacts on forest health. Fire is a landscape level process that is most often studied with smaller-scale experiments, field-parameterized models, or retrospective field studies. It is very rare when there are opportunities to empirically test wildfire effects and fire treatments with the level of control offered by a paired watershed study with a before-after-control-impact design, as presented in this circumstance. This project will very directly advance our understanding by quantifying the inherent trade-offs associated with wildfire and treatments to reduce wildfire impacts.

美国西部野火的生态和管理构成了一个艰巨的挑战。该项目利用一个独特的机会，直接测量野火对美国西部森林健康的影响。2013年，美国大火烧毁了加州塔霍国家森林43平方英里的土地。在这个过程中，它碰巧烧毁了一项现有的研究，该研究旨在评估火灾后燃料管理对树木生存，新幼苗建立，地面植被，野生动物以及水质和水量的有效性，其中火灾处理将在以后的小规模实验模式中实施。事实上，所有的火灾前测量刚刚完成了一个广泛的网络的树木和燃料库存地块，都未经处理和处理时，美国火灾爆发。这项新的奖励将使所有地块的重新测量后，野火立即，但在计划的抢救伐木作业开始，以测试是否燃料管理治疗实际上缓和了火灾的影响，并减少了对森林的损害。这项研究将在西部国家森林现行管理制度的背景下进行。由于这项工作将与当地联邦和州森林管理人员合作进行，其结果将立即为这些森林的未来管理提供信息。这种情况也使一个特殊的学习和教学机会。例如，将举行重点研讨会和网络研讨会，以解释，讨论和剖析本项目成果对管理和自然资源政策的意义。内华达州山脉森林中的野火往往比过去燃烧得更激烈，更大。对生态系统结构和功能的影响可能是变革性的。与此同时，可以减少火灾风险的采伐和间伐作业引起了对森林健康影响的关切。火灾是一个景观水平的过程，最常研究的是小规模的实验，现场参数化模型，或回顾性实地研究。这是非常罕见的，当有机会经验性地测试野火的影响和火灾治疗的控制水平提供了一个配对的流域研究与控制后的影响设计，在这种情况下。该项目将通过量化与野火和治疗相关的固有权衡来减少野火影响，从而直接促进我们的理解。