Measuring forest structure-disturbance interactions in western US forests
Dr. Emily FrancisÌý
Assistant Professor of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Colorado State UniversityÌý
Abstract:
In recent decades, large high-severity wildfires have occurred across a diverse set of forest types and climatic settings in the western US. In forests where fire suppression has led to widespread fuel accumulation, dynamic and up to date maps of forest structure and fuel conditions could support efforts to scale fuel management activities to reduce fire severity and delay climate-driven type conversion. In this talk, I will discuss a semi-automated system we have developed to monitor forest structure and fuel conditions in northern New Mexico and the Colorado Front Range.ÌýÌýThe system upscales airborne lidar-derived measurements of forest structure over space and time with Sentinel-1 backscatter and Sentinel-2 imagery. Efforts to use the system to monitor effects of thinning and prescribed fire treatments on forest structure and quantify fire-driven forest structural change are ongoing. Finally, I will also discuss recent work using pre-fire vegetation data to test a fuel vs. climate fire limitation hypothesis across a climate gradient in western US forests. Our results support a nuanced interpretation of fuel and climate limitations on fire in western US forests.Ìý