Abstract
Wildfires can cause significant negative impacts to water quality with resultant consequences for the environment and human health and safety, as well as incurring substantial rehabilitation and water treatment costs. In this paper we will illustrate how state-of-the-art wildfire simulation modeling and geospatial risk assessment methods can be brought to bear to identify and prioritize at-risk watersheds for risk mitigation treatments, in both pre-fire and post-fire planning contexts. Risk assessment results can be particularly useful for prioritizing management of hazardous fuels to lessen the severity and likely impacts of future wildfires, where budgetary and other constraints limit the amount of area that can be treated. Specifically we generate spatially resolved estimates of wildfire likelihood and intensity, and couple that information with spatial data on watershed location and watershed erosion potential to quantify watershed exposure and risk. For a case study location we focus on National Forest System lands in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. The Region houses numerous watersheds that are critically important to drinking water supplies and that have been impacted or threatened by large wildfires in recent years. Assessment results are the culmination of a broader multi-year science-management partnership intended to have direct bearing on wildfire management decision processes in the Region. Our results suggest substantial variation in the exposure of and likely effects to highly valued watersheds throughout the Region, which carry significant implications for prioritization. In particular we identified the San Juan National Forest as having the highest concentration of at-risk highly valued watersheds, as well as the greatest amount of risk that can be mitigated via hazardous fuel reduction treatments. To conclude we describe future opportunities and challenges for management of wildfire-watershed interactions.
Highlights
Provision of clean water is a fundamental ecosystem service provided by forested landscapes
In this article we present our use of state-of-the-art wildfire simulation and risk assessment techniques to perform a comparative assessment of watershed exposure and risk in the Rocky
We presented application of an emerging geospatial wildfire risk assessment framework to quantify and map risks to watershed health and water quality, and further to help prioritize areas for risk mitigation efforts
Summary
Provision of clean water is a fundamental ecosystem service provided by forested landscapes. Large and severe wildfires present a major threat to watershed health, because they can impair watershed condition, alter hydrologic and geomorphic processes, and degrade water quality [2,3,4,5]. Wildfires can lead to significant changes in stream water chemistry, and post-fire sediment-driven transport can lead to increases in contaminant loads [8,9,10,11]. Water quality degradation can have significant consequences for human health, safety, and aquatic habitat, and can lead to substantial rehabilitation and water treatment costs. Water quality impacts can be of significant concern for water utilities, related to treatment costs and maintaining water quality standards, and the potential for damage or impairment of infrastructure due to excessive sedimentation [7]
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