NNA Research: Collaborative Research: Socio-ecological considerations for sustainAble Fuel treatments to Reduce wildfire Risk (SAFRR)

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。导航新北极（NNA）是NSF的十大创意之一。NNA项目解决快速变化的北极地区的趋同科学挑战。北极研究需要为国家、更大地区和地球仪的经济、安全和复原力提供信息。NNA授权从地方到国际规模的新的研究伙伴关系，使下一代北极研究人员多样化，加强正规和非正规教育的努力，并在适当的情况下整合知识的共同生产。该奖项通过解决以下NNA重点领域中社会系统，自然环境和建筑环境之间的相互作用来实现这一目标的一部分：北极居民、教育、预测、全球影响和弹性基础设施。北方森林是冻土带以南环绕北极的地带，约占全球森林面积的30%，提供重要的食物、住所、和其他需求，以及在地方，区域和全球范围内的关键经济机会。野火自然发生在北方森林，但随着气候变暖，它们变得越来越危险。自20世纪90年代以来，阿拉斯加和加拿大西部每年被烧毁的北方森林面积翻了一番，该地区在过去十年中经历了一些最致命和最昂贵的野火事件。植被管理方法，如间伐和规定的燃烧，也被称为燃料处理，是土地管理机构，土地所有者和社区为减少居民和基础设施风险而采用的主要工具之一。有效的燃料处理需要大量的规划、实施成本和维护。燃料处理也可能引起争议;它们可能面临阻力，并影响附近居民的态度和行为。在这个项目中，研究人员正在与管理林地和野火的机构人员合作，创建一个综合框架来评估燃料处理;评估其短期和长期的生态影响以及对野火行为的影响;检查它们被居民接受的可能性;并评估替代燃料处理设计实现社会，生态和公共安全目标的能力。该项目提供了关于植被如何应对不同处理、安装和维护成本以及北方森林居民对不同类型处理的可接受性的见解，并正在改善土地管理者、土地所有者和社区如何使用燃料处理来降低野火风险。项目团队正在与公共土地和野火从业者、土著组织、和社区的基奈半岛，阿拉斯加内陆，安克雷奇，怀特霍斯，育空地区，共同制作一个综合评估的燃料处理。该小组正在采用一种共同制作的方法来建立一个综合的社会生态评价框架。该项目包括与土地管理人员和野火从业人员的讲习班和访谈，以确定首选战略、实施障碍和有关燃料处理的关键政策，并促进知识交流和合作。小组成员正在提供关于不同类型燃料处理和生态区的燃料回收率的新估计，以更好地了解燃料处理和维护要求的短期和长期生态影响。他们还在测试植被演替轨迹是否可以用于以较低的维护成本创造更持久的治疗方法，并评估替代设计实现已确定的社会，生态，经济和公共安全目标的能力。调查和访谈被用来评估公众接受的燃料处理在阿拉斯加和增加了解如何偏好和社会接受的燃料处理影响房主风险缓解行为在亚北极communities.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. The Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe. NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, enhances efforts in formal and informal education, and integrates the co-production of knowledge where appropriate. This award fulfills part of that aim by addressing interactions among social systems, the natural environment, and the built environment in the following NNA focus areas: Arctic Residents, Education, Forecasting, Global Impact, and Resilient Infrastructure.The boreal forest, a belt surrounding the Arctic south of the tundra, represents about 30% of the global forest area and provides critical food, shelter, and other needs to local and Indigenous peoples and wildlife, as well as key economic opportunities at the local, regional, and global scale. Wildfires occur naturally in boreal forests, but they have become increasingly dangerous as the climate warms. The area of boreal forest burned each year in Alaska and western Canada has doubled since the 1990s, and the region has experienced some of the most deadly and costly wildfire events in the last decade. Vegetation management methods such as thinning and prescribed burns, also known as fuel treatment, are among the main tools employed by land management agencies, landowners, and communities to reduce risk to residents and infrastructure. Effective fuel treatments require significant planning, implementation costs, and maintenance. Fuel treatments can also be controversial; they may face resistance and affect attitudes and behaviors of nearby residents. In this project, researchers are working with agency personnel managing forest lands and wildfire to create an integrated framework to evaluate fuel treatments; assess their short-term and long-term ecological effects and influence on wildfire behavior; examine how likely they are to be acceptable to residents; and evaluate the ability of alternative fuel treatment designs to achieve social, ecological, and public safety goals. The project is providing insights into how vegetation responds to different treatments, installation and maintenance costs, and acceptability to residents of different types of treatments in boreal forests, and is improving how land managers, landowners, and communities can use fuel treatments to reduce wildfire risk.The project team is working with public land and wildfire practitioners; Indigenous organizations; and communities on the Kenai Peninsula, in Interior Alaska, and Anchorage, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to co-produce an integrated assessment of fuel treatments. The team is following a co-produced approach to an integrated social-ecological evaluation framework. The project includes workshops and interviews with land managers and wildfire practitioners to identify preferred strategies, barriers to implementation, and key policies regarding fuel treatments and promote the exchange of knowledge and collaboration. Team members are providing new estimates on rates of fuel recovery across different types of fuel treatments and ecoregions to better understand the short and long-term ecological effects of fuel treatments and maintenance requirements. They are also testing whether vegetation successional trajectories can be directed towards creating longer-lasting treatments with lower maintenance costs, and evaluating the ability of alternative designs to achieve identified social, ecological, economic, and public safety goals. Surveys and interviews are being used to evaluate public acceptance of fuel treatments in Alaska and increase the understanding of how preferences and social acceptability of fuel treatments affect homeowner risk mitigation behavior in subarctic communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.