Research Database
Displaying 121 - 125 of 125
Strategic planning for instream flow restoration: a case study of potential climate change impacts in the central Columbia River basin
Year: 2012
We provide a case study prioritizing instream flow restoration activities by sub-basin according to the habitat needs of Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed salmonids relative to climate change in the central Columbia River basin in Washington State (USA). The objective is to employ scenario analysis to inform and improve existing instream flow restoration projects. We assess the sensitivity of late summer (July, August, and September) flows to the following scenario simulations singly or in combination: climate change, changes in the quantity of water used for irrigation and possible changes…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Nontribal community recovery from wildfire five years later: The case of the Rodeo-Chediski fire
Year: 2011
Recent literature suggests that natural disasters such as wildfires often have the short-term effect of ‘‘bringing people together’’ while also under some circumstances generating social conflict at the local level. Conflict has been documented particularly when social relations are disembedded by nonlocal entities and there is a perceived loss of local agency. There is less agreement about longer term impacts. We present results of a re-study of a set of communities affected by the largest wildfire in Arizona history. The re-study uses structuration theory to suggest that while local…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public and Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?
Year: 2010
Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’’—capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire as a restoration tool: A decision framework for predicting the control or enhancement of plants using fire
Year: 2010
Wildfires change plant communities by reducing dominance of some species while enhancing the abundance of others. Detailed habitat-specific models have been developed to predict plant responses to fire, but these models generally ignore the breadth of fire regime characteristics that can influence plant survival such as the degree and duration of exposure to lethal temperatures. We provide a decision framework that integrates fire regime components, plant growth form, and survival attributes to predict how plants will respond to fires and how fires can be prescribed to enhance the likelihood…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Jurisdictional decision-making about building codes for resiliency and sustainability post-fire
Year:
The increasing frequency and size of wildfires across the U.S. motivates the growing need to identify how affected communities can rebuild sustainably and resiliently. This study examines the jurisdictional decision-making process surrounding one important class of sustainability and resiliency decisions, focusing on energy and wildfire building codes for housing reconstruction. Through 22 interviews with staff and elected officials in three jurisdictions impacted by Colorado's Marshall Fire, we identify factors influencing decisions. Code decisions varied across jurisdictions and, in some…
Publication Type: Journal Article