Use of fire spread and hydrology models to target forest management on a municipal watershed

Abstract

A small town relies on a forested watershed for its water supply. The forest is at risk for a wildfire. To reduce this risk, some of the watershed will be thinned followed by a prescribed burn. This paper reports on a study to evaluate the impact of such watershed disturbances on water yield. To target management activities, a fire spread model was applied to the landscape that contains the watershed. The output from the fire spread model was used to develop input files for a watershed hydrology and erosion model. The resulting erosion map was used to identify hillslope polygons that would generate the greatest amount of erosion following a wildfire, and those polygons were prioritized for treatment. The study found that the change in water yield was less than 1 percent when as much as 20 percent of the watershed was treated.

Citation

Srivastava, Anurag; Elliot, William J.; Wu, Joan. 2015. Use of fire spread and hydrology models to target forest management on a municipal watershed. Presented at the 2015 EWRI Watershed Management Conference; Reston, VA; August 4-7, 2015. Baltimore, MD: American Society of Civil Engineers, Environmental and Water Resources Institute. 15 p.