Quantifying Trade-offs of Alternative Vegetation Management Strategies, Wildfire, and Suppression in Fire Prone Regions of the US
Investigators:
Disturbance Economics Research Team, Southern Research Station
Research and Development Question Addressed:
Events of the current year have prompted policy makers and the public to question what is the appropriate amount and combination of wildland fire actions and policies. However, analytical tools for evaluating the trade-offs between fuel reduction, fire suppression, and wildfire damages are not available at regional scales. We propose to develop a set of statistical models that relate wildfire extent and severity to prescribed burning, stand density management, other pre-suppression efforts, patterns of human development, and eco-physical variables including plant communities, topography, and broad climatic patterns and their links to fire weather. These models would build upon similar models developed by the Disturbance Economics Research Team in modeling of the 1998 catastrophic Florida wildfires and would draw upon the extensive abilities of an experienced ocean-climate researcher and an experienced western fire behavior researcher. We will gather data and estimate models that provide information about the net value changes of wildfire, including timber market losses, suppression costs, property damages, and ecosystem services, conditional on climatic conditions both historical and predicted. We will also obtain data and estimate the costs-economic and social-of alternative fuel treatments; these will include the revenues obtained from the removal of small diameter trees. This value and cost information will then be used in conjunction with wildfire risk models that include expected climate/fire weather conditions to evaluate the economic, ecological, and managerial trade-offs of alternative vegetation management strategies, by region.
Outcomes:
The models that we develop could be used to identify combinations of pre-suppression activities that minimize the net damages of wildfires. Because broad climatic patterns are somewhat predictable on a monthly or annual basis through links to ocean temperature oscillations, and because developed models will be dynamic, broad-scale wildfire risk measures could be developed that will enhance long range planning. Models may also be used in a simulation mode to evaluate the trade-offs among the various suppression and vegetation management strategies. The wildfire models would allow more precise evaluation of the long-term impacts of fuel management and other pre-suppression activities, identify areas where greater or lesser vegetation control activities would result in lowered net damages from wildfire, and permit better assignment of suppression or pre-suppression resources across regions. Incorporating broad-scale climate predictions would further help in regional and national targeting of suppression resources, by placing the management decisions in terms of conditional probabilities associated with expected climatic conditions.
First year: Models of wildfire spatial and temporal dynamics by wildfire cause for Florida
Second year: Models of wildfire spatial and temporal dynamics for other regions of the US; Net value change and vegetation management net unit cost estimates for wildfire by region and by severity and by climate state;
Three to five years: Computer models to evaluate economic, ecological, and management trade-offs of alternative vegetation management strategies conditional on observed/predicted climate conditions.
Problem Area(s): Forest Policy
Status:
Ongoing
modified:
14-DEC-2000
created by:
Jeff Prestemon
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USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
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