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Project ID: 06-3-4-21

Year: 2006

Date Started: 07/07/2006

Date Completed: 03/31/2011

Title: Evaluating and Predicting Postfire Salvage Logging Effects on Erosion

Project Proposal Abstract: Legal challenges have delayed numerous postfire salvage logging sales, which often results in lost economic value of the burned timber and unrecouped legal expenses. The scientific literature shed little light on the additive effect of salvage logging operations on postfire runoff, erosion, flooding and sedimentation. Hence there is an urgent need to better understand the impacts of postfire salvage operations and to develop reliable prediction tools so that land managers can evaluate the relative effects of different salvage logging practices. Intensive, replicated, and multi-scale studies are needed because the effects of postfire logging are superimposed on the effect of wildfires, and the available data suggest a high variability in the effects of logging operations according to the type and extent of the logging, site conditions, and climatic conditions. To address this need, we are proposing an integrated network of process, hillslope-scale, and sub-watershed scale studies. To evaluate the underlying processes and determine key parameters, rill simulation studies will be conducted on sites affected by salvage logging (e.g., skid trails, forwarder/feller buncher tracks, and cable logging drag trails). Sediment production rates will be assessed from replicated hillslope-scale plots and related, if possible, to detailed measurements of the site conditions, including explicit evaluations of the changes in cover, rilling, and disturbance area due to salvage logging operations and associated erosion mitigation practices (e.g., intensive water barring). Runoff and sediment yield data will be collected from six paired sub-watersheds to determine whether the erosion prediction estimates can be aggregated to larger scales. Two pairs of logged/unlogged sub-watersheds have already been established with National Fire Plan Adaptive Management funds.

Principal Investigator: Peter R. Robichaud

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Moscow

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	William J. Elliot	Forest Service	RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Moscow
Co-Principal Investigator	Lee H. MacDonald	Colorado State University	Department of Forest, Rangeland & Watershed Stewardship
Federal Cooperator	James Saveland	Forest Service	RMRS-Natural Resources Research Center

Project Locations

Consortium

Great Plains

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Southern Rockies

Southwest

Level	State	Agency	Unit
REGIONAL	Interior West	MULTIPLE
REGIONAL	Pacific Coast States	MULTIPLE

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

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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