Advanced Search Results Detail

Project ID: 04-2-1-84

Year: 2004

Date Started: 07/21/2004

Date Completed: 11/16/2007

Title: Translating SPLSTs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape: The Implications of Fuel Management Strategies for Sagehen Creek Basin, Tahoe National Forest

Project Proposal Abstract: Nearly a century of fire suppression in the Sierra Nevada has had the unintended consequence of placing millions of hectares of forest at risk of catastrophic fire. Modifying wildland fire behavior across landscapes in the Sierran National Forests has been identified as a management priority. The preferred response is to apply strategic fuel treatments at the landscape level, yet there is little guidance for the implementation of this strategy. Sagehen Creek Basin in the Tahoe National Forest provides a representative landscape, where the accumulation of forest fuels has created a severe risk of catastrophic wildfire. The primary goal of the proposed administrative study is: To evaluate the effectiveness of strategically placed area treatments (SPLAT) in reducing fire hazard at Sagehen Creek Basin. Our approach is first to build a field-parameterized version of the fire behavior model, FARSITE, and simulate alternative fuel management designs. The performances of these designs would be evaluated in terms of slowing fire spread and reducing fire intensity. The data needed to develop the map layers for FARSITE would be obtained from a network of geo-referenced field plots where we would measure the fire-relevant attributes of the vegetation and the surface fuels. Since these attributes are not only heterogeneous but also resistant to measurement via remote sensing, we will explore innovative, efficient field methods for assessing fuel loads. We will capitalize on the long-term monitoring record at Sagehen to quantify the recent trends in forest change and use the results to inform fuel management strategies. Our hope is that the specific lessons learned during this intensive study of one landscape will help guide planning for other management units in the Tahoe National Forest and other forest in the Sierra Nevada. The presence of Sagehen Creek Field Station provides vital infrastructure support to extend these results to both professional managers and the interested public.

Principal Investigator: Scott L. Stephens

Agency/Organization: University of California-Berkeley

Branch or Dept: Department of Environmental Sciences-Policy & Management

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	John J. Battles	University of California-Berkeley	Department of Environmental Sciences-Policy & Management
Federal Cooperator	Joanne Roubique	Forest Service	Tahoe NF-Truckee Ranger District

Project Locations

Consortium

Alaska

Appalachian

California

Great Basin

Great Plains

Lake States

Oak Woodlands

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Pacific

South

Southern Rockies

Southwest

Tallgrass

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

	ID	Type	Title
	7300	NonRefereed Publication	Point Relascope Sampling of Surface Fuels
	7304	Invited Paper/Presentation	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape
	9370	Invited Paper/Presentation	Canopy Cover Analysis
	7306	Invited Paper/Presentation	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape
	7305	Invited Paper/Presentation	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscage--Evaluated Performance of Initial SPLAT Design at Sagehen Creek Basin
	7303	Invited Paper/Presentation	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape
	7302	Invited Paper/Presentation	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape: The Implications of Fuel Management Strategies for Sagehen Creek Basin, Tahoe National Forest
	8862	Poster	Translating SPLATs From a Theoretical to a Real World Landscape: The Implications of Fuel Management Strategies for Sagehen Creek Basin, Tahoe National Forest

Supporting Documents

The following supporting documents are available for this project.

Brief

Convert PDF documents to an html document using Adobe's online conversion tool.