OVERALL:
Toward Restoration and Recovery
Adaptive Management and Monitoring Report by Intermountain Region, Northern Region, and the Rocky Mountain Research Station
Yearly progress report dated October 2002
(This is a PDF file. Please use Adobe Acrobate to read the Portable Document file (PDF). Free download is available at Adobe Acrobat.
Approach
Adaptive Management and Monitoring Priorities
Status Plan:
Memo dated June 6, 2001
Integrated Studies
Sampling frames for biological monitoring
(including salvage and non-salvage areas)
Status 2001-Marcum
WATERSHED, SOILS, RIPARIAN:
Overall
Technology Transfer and Workshops
Study Plan
Status 2001-Overton
Status 2002-Rieman - Synthesis of Knowledge
Fire and Aquatic Ecosystem Workshop: A Summary (April 2002)
Aquatic Systems
Indicators and monitoring approaches
Study Plan
Status 2001-Rieman
Riparian and large woody debris
Overall Plan
Study Plan - Wollrab
Status 2001 - Wollrab
Non-riverine habitats
Status 2001-Lampman
Amphibians
Status 2001-Pilliod
Influence on Non-Native Fish
Study Plan
Status 2001-Young
Status 2001-Gardner
Soil and Water Flows
Water repellency and influence on rehabilitation
Study Plan
Status 2001-Luce
Effects on soil processes and nutrient cycling
Study Plan
Status 2001-Dumroese
Calibration of water flow model
Study Plan
Status 2001-Wintergerst
Effects of Rehabilitation and Treatments
Risk assessment tools
Study Plan
Status 2001-Barta
Monitoring effectiveness of post-fire rehabilitation treatments
Study Plan
Status 2001-Robichaud
What Are The Short- And Long-Term Effects
Of Fires On Stream Ecosystems?
INVASIVE WEEDS:
Suppression, Restoration, and Exotic Weed Invasion
Study Plan
Status 2001-Sutherland
Status 2001-Lake
Status 2001-Schuldt
NATIVE SEED REVEGETATION:
Native Revegetation
Study Plan
Monitoring
Flathead National Forest
Study Plan
Status 2001-Hodder
Fishlake National Forest
Study Plan
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC:
Understanding Communities at the Wildland/Urban Interface
Post Wildfire Monitoring
Status 2001-Williams
Economic and Policy Comparisons of Salvage Operations
Human Dimensions of Adaptive Management R1/R4
Western Ecological Research Center
Wildland fires are an important ecosystem process throughout the western United States. Coniferous forests have long been subject to a frequent fire regime of low-intensity fires, which played an important role in reducing hazardous fuels and in rejuvenating the forests. In chaparral shrublands of California, high-intensity crown fires have been a strong force guiding the evolution of plant life, and regulator of ecological communities. In many desert habitats, fires have been far less frequent, and often are a more severe disturbance. Today the natural role of fire in these ecosystems is complicated by the fact that fire potentially favors plant invasions and these aliens in turn may alter fire regimes.
To restore more normal fire dynamics to a particular region, managers need to know how fire has historically affected the local system, and how it functions today. Researchers at the Western Ecological Research Center (WERC) are making contributions to this effort through detailed studies of fire history and fire ecology in the Sierra Nevada forests, the California shrublands, and the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Knowledge from these studies is forming the basis for new policies aimed at restoring fire cycles that will present a lower risk to human life and property, and help safeguard the stability and diversity of Pacific Southwest ecosystems.
