In this webinar, members of the research team will discuss a new modeling framework for projecting habitat suitability for invasive plants under future climate scenarios, which they applied to invasive water-primrose (Ludwigia spp.) and knotweed (Reynoutria spp.) species in the Northwest. They’ll also share a new bioeconomic model of invasive species management that explores changes in management costs as potential habitat for invasive plants expands under climate change.
The University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, Consortium host of the the NW CASC, has released a new strategic plan to guide the next five years of its work. Among several key priorities, the strategic plan reflects a commitment to centering equity in climate adaptation, with particular attention to environmental justice and community resilience.
The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) is hiring a postdoctoral researcher focused on understanding the role of climate and weather in shaping outcomes of dryland restoration efforts.
As part of the Dryland Ecohydrology Team led by NW CASC research ecologist Dr. John Bradford, this position will work collaboratively with researchers from U.S. Geological Survey and resource managers from Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Applicant review will begin on August 1, 2024 and continue until the position is filled.
Building upon the success of the first Climate Change and Climate Adaptation Training Series for Grasslands Practitioners, the Northwest CASC joined three other regional CASCs and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in developing and delivering a second climate adaptation training series for sagebrush practitioners. This series began with virtual classroom sessions and culminated with an in-person, two-day workshop in Boise, Idaho.
A special drought status update for Pacific Northwest Tribes shares that drought has begun to develop and is expected to persist across many Pacific Northwest Tribal lands this summer. The NW CASC and partners worked with the National Integrated Drought Information System to release this update, which provides key takeaways, maps and resources of the most up-to-date science on drought conditions and response considerations.
The update summarizes current conditions for regional snowpack, streamflows and drought, and also provides seasonal forecasts for temperature, precipitation, wildfire potential and drought outlook this summer and into fall 2024. NIDIS and its partners will issue future Drought Status Updates as conditions evolve.
Lead author and NW CASC Research Fellow alum Michele Buonanduci conducts research in the Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington.
Source: University of Washington
In the western United States, warmer and drier conditions have contributed to increases in large wildfire events in recent decades, a trend that’s expected to continue as the climate changes. A new, NW CASC-supported study led by Research Fellowship alum Michele Buonanduci, with University of Washington Associate Professor Brian Harvey and colleagues, describes an approach for anticipating the relationships between future fire sizes and burn severity patterns on a regional scale. The findings from this study can help scientists and managers better anticipate the ecological effects of future fire and plan management responses that promote fire-adapted landscapes.
Within individual wildfires, there is typically a range of burn severity. Areas of low- or moderate-severity fire burn less intensely and often leave behind surviving vegetation, while areas of high-severity fire burn more intensely and kill most or all the vegetation in an area.
The amount of forest experiencing high-severity fire is often strongly tied to the size of a given fire. Larger wildfires tend to contain bigger patches of high-severity fire, which leave behind burned areas that may be too far away from living trees for effective seed dispersal after fire. Because of this, larger wildfires tend to have a greater impact on forest structure than smaller wildfires, in which the patches of severely burned forest are smaller and closer to live seed sources, making forest recovery more rapid or likely.
NW CASC-supported researchers set out to quantify the potential range of burn severity patterns that might be expected in a region, depending on the distribution of sizes of future fire events.
Source: University of Washington
These relationships between fire size and expected patterns of burn severity — referred to as spatial scaling relationships — prompt the question of how, at a regional scale, burn severity patterns will change as fire sizes shift under climate change. To answer this question, NW CASC-supported researchers set out to quantify the potential range of burn severity patterns that might be expected in a region, depending on the distribution of sizes of future fire events.
The research team first analyzed a satellite dataset of 1,615 fire events in the forested ecoregions of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and northern California between 1985-2020. Within this area, they focused on a case study in northwestern Cascadia, a forested region west of the Cascade Crest in Washington and northern Oregon, characterized by its wet and cool conditions and rich biomass. While historically, this area experienced long time periods between large and severe wildfires, increasing fire activity is expected to shape this area in the future as the climate warms.
Researchers first wanted to see if the spatial scaling relationships they modeled in northwestern Cascadia, an area with relatively limited wildfire data in contemporary satellite records, were consistent with the relationships they saw in the more data-rich parts of their study area. After comparing northwestern Cascadia and the broader study area, they found that spatial scaling relationships in northwestern Cascadia were comparable to other infrequent, high-severity fire regimes. This important finding means that fire records from data-limited regions could be supplemented by data from comparable fire regimes to understand scaling relationships and evaluate future fire effects.
The next step in this study was to use these spatial scaling relationships of burn severity, in combination with scenarios representing a range of future fire sizes, to simulate how regional burn severity patterns may vary depending on the number and size of individual fire events. Simply put, the researchers asked: If a cumulative total of one million hectares of forest were to burn, how would the patterns of burn severity likely differ if those million hectares burned in many small fires or few, large fires?
The simulations in this study found that, even if total area burned were to remain the same, a shift toward larger fire events will likely result in larger, high-severity patches with inside areas far from unburned seed sources. The increasing size and uniformity of high-severity fire patches may affect seed dispersal (depending on region-specific seed dispersal parameters), tree regeneration and young forest habitat, and the possible conversion to non-forest ecosystems. These findings have implications for both real-time fire management and post-fire management.
In areas such as the northwestern Cascadia example used in this study, one strategy for increasing forest resilience to fire and climate change would be to manage fire in a way that allows wildfires to reach a range of sizes, thus diversifying regional forest structure. Though this practice of modified fire suppression has the potential to provide ecological benefits, the high density of human populations and development in northwestern Cascadia limit the opportunities for this type of managed wildfire.
The findings from this study have implications for both real-time fire management and post-fire management, such as prioritizing where to plant following fire.
Source: U.S. Forest Service
Another consideration for increasing forest resilience as the climate changes is to prioritize areas to replant following fire. In northwestern Cascadia, since the dominant species of trees depend on wind-driven seed dispersal for regeneration, planning post-fire replanting in burned areas that are likely to exceed seed dispersal distances will be important when maintaining forest cover is the management goal. The prospect of replanting huge swaths of severely burned forests sounds daunting, but this study also found some reassuring information. Based on the case study of northwestern Cascadia, this study found that even in the largest fire-size scenarios, around 85% of the total burned area is unlikely to require post-fire replanting. Only about 15% of the total burned area was outside of the likely dispersal distance of unburned, live trees.
While larger, high-severity fires have the potential to slow tree regeneration rates, they may also help restore ecologically and culturally important early-seral habitat. Early-seral ecosystems emerge after major disturbance events and are initially dominated by grasses and shrubs. They are high in biodiversity and structurally complex, providing habitat for animal and plant species, including huckleberry, a culturally important plant species for Tribes in the Northwest. Depending on the context, managers may decide not to intervene in severely-burned patches in an effort to promote early-seral habitat.
This study provides an approach for exploring and preparing for the range of possible ecological impacts of future fires. Since this approach is generalizable across different fire regimes, it can be applied across different regions to support decisions around stewarding our forests before and after wildfires.
Additional coauthors on this study include Dan Donato and Josh Halofsky of the Washington Department of Natural Resources and Maureen Kennedy, Associate Professor at the University of Washington – Tacoma.
Amelia Marchand has been appointed to the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation by President Biden
Source: 4Leaf Photography LLC, Kristie Toulou
We are thrilled to announce that Amelia Marchand, who has been serving as the NW CASC Interim Senior Tribal Climate Resilience Liaison through the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI), has been appointed to a 4-year term on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) by President Biden! The ACHP is an independent, federal agency that promotes the economic, educational, environmental, sustainability and cultural values of historic preservation and advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy. Amelia joins ACHP as the Tribal Member representative and will serve as the Tribes & Indigenous Peoples Committee Chair.
Amelia is a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington and has spent over 25 years working in the cultural and natural resource fields. In an ACHP press release, Amelia states “Over the years, I have worked in many different roles to document, protect, and perpetuate Indigenous Knowledges, cultural ecologies, and intangible cultural heritages in ways that honor unique protocols, worldviews, and values…Yet, I enter this role humbly, willing and able to learn from the great leadership and accomplishments of Chairman Reno Keoni Franklin and his predecessors, as well as the great leaders from my own family and diverse heritage, from all genders and lineages. I may be the first Indigenous woman to serve in the Tribal Member position and the second Indigenous woman to serve on the ACHP, but my ancestors are with me, and I will not be alone, or the last.”
The NW CASC is hiring a full-time research scientist to join its team at the University of Washington. This position will play a crucial role in the NW CASC’s efforts to link climate adaptation science with practice to support regional climate resilience. We are seeking candidates with strong communication, organization and synthesis skills to facilitate knowledge exchange between researchers and managers and build scientist-manager communities of practice. This position will also contribute natural science expertise in support of NW CASC programs. A doctoral degree is preferred.
Application review is already underway, so apply today!
The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) is hiring a full-time research scientist to join its team at the University of Washington. This position will play a crucial role in the NW CASC’s efforts to link climate adaptation science with practice to support regional climate resilience. We are seeking candidates with strong communication, organization and synthesis skills to facilitate knowledge exchange between researchers and managers and build scientist-manager communities of practice. This position will also contribute natural science expertise in support of NW CASC programs.
The responsibilities of this new position will require significant partner outreach and engagement, science synthesis and event coordination. Thus, we are seeking candidates with strong organization and communication skills. The expected salary range for this position is $5,870 – $7,325 per month depending on experience. This position is located at the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group in Seattle. A doctoral degree is preferred.
We will start reviewing applications for this position on June 10, 2024.
Professor Brian Harvey’s Lab conducts research to understand how forests are recovering since the 2017 Norse Fire in the Snoqualmie National Forest.
Source: University of Washington
Wildfires are changing as the climate warms, and so too are the ways in which some ecosystems are responding to fire. In the Northwest and other regions around the world, changes in wildfires (read: bigger, more frequent, and in some cases, more severe), combined with warmer and drier conditions, are making it difficult for some ecosystems to return to their former states after fire. In these cases, the dominant species and functions in some areas of an ecosystem may change following fire (e.g., forests being replaced by grasslands or shrublands), in a process known as ecological transformation.
Post-fire transitions in vegetation, which are expected to increase under climate change, are causing significant impacts to ecosystems and the human communities that rely on them. Yet despite this risk, institutional and social constraints, combined with limited information on management strategies, have prevented land managers from keeping pace with this emerging climate challenge.
Exploring the facets of this challenge, a new NW CASC-supported study describes the types of information, coordination and values needed to manage post-fire vegetation shifts ethically and effectively as they become more common in the face of climate change. Drawing on lessons learned from the NW CASC’s 2020 Deep Dive on Managing Post-Fire Vegetation Change in a Warming Climate and the authors’ collective experiences, this study identifies three key needs for advancing the management of post-fire vegetation transitions: 1) centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire-prone ecosystems, 2) developing decision-relevant science to inform pre- and post-fire management, and 3) supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information-sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries.
A Tribal fire crew member in Oregon monitors a prescribed burn, a key tool for preventing large wildfires that are likely to become more common under climate change.
Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service
Tribal communities have played a key role in shaping fire regimes for millenia by applying complex systems of cultural knowledge and stewardship to manage ecosystems. However, Western science and land management policies focused on reducing human influence in fire-prone landscapes, along with continued colonization and systemic racism, have attempted to erase the key role that Indigenous people have played in their ecosystems and the reciprocal role that fire-adapted ecosystems play in the well-being of Indigenous communities. This paper asserts that understanding and managing vegetation transitions under climate change will require collaborative management that centers Indigenous communities, who have stewarded these landscapes for millenia, as focal decision makers. In the Northwest, scientists and resource managers can learn from case studies, such as the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership, around how to ethically engage Tribes in respectful and reciprocal partnerships for collaborative fire management.
The paper also identifies the need for more information on where and when these post-fire vegetation transitions may occur; possible tradeoffs of management strategies; and approaches for confronting uncertainty in decision making processes. Further, the paper stresses how improving long-term, landscape-scale monitoring and coordination across management entities will be necessary for enabling learning and adaptive management across boundaries.
Ultimately, this paper emphasizes that emerging frameworks and approaches for managing post-fire vegetation transitions call for scientists and managers to embrace multiple ways of knowing; acknowledge and disrupt power dynamics that led to the exclusion of Indigenous groups from management decisions; and let go of past assumptions about managing ecosystems after fire.
This paper, featured in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, was co-authored by U.S. Forest Service partners Kimberly Davis and Monique Wynecoop; former NW CASC Actionable Science Postdoc Mary Ann Rozance; NW CASC Research Fellowship Alumni Katherine Swensen, Drew Lyons and Charlotte Dohrn, and NW CASC University Director Meade Krosby.
