Recreational use management and wildfires in Southern California: Using GIS and visual landscape simulation models for economic assessment

Abstract

Recent advances in fire behavior are conforming strategies for forest management in nonindustrial private and public forests in the western United States. The strategy developed should include identifying the most cost-effective ways for allocating fire management budgets. In recreational areas, visitors’ opinion should be included in forest planning decisions and surveys have been useful tools to collect this information. However, it is difficult to assess fire prior to occurrence, particularly in areas where fire regime varies due to climate change. We merged geographic information system (GIS) applications and visual landscape simulation models to obtain visual information about predicted scenarios including different forest management programs, climate change predictions and future wildland fire risk. In our study, we represent both, forested landscapes and individual stands, after forest management activity and wildfires in the short, medium and long term. Our goal was to determine how recreational values are related to preservation (or not) of different parts of the landscape and how it is affected by wildfires through time. We used an online survey to determine recreationists’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for non-fire programs in the San Jacinto Wilderness, San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California. The computer visualization is a useful tool to gauge visitors’ preferences and consider it in land management planning, including potential actions or disturbances based on landscape modeling. This type of tool can be used by forest managers and stakeholders to support their decision to demonstrate and evaluate tradeoffs of pursuing alternative fire management strategies to promote a more sustainable future wildland fire management program and its appropriate role in public land management.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: climate change and wildfires

Citation

Moya, Daniel; González-Cabán, Armando; Sánchez, José J.; de la Heras, José. 2013. Recreational use management and wildfires in Southern California: Using GIS and visual landscape simulation models for economic assessment. In: González-Cabán, Armando, tech. coord. Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: climate change and wildfires. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-245 (English). Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 235-245.