Assessment of wildfire exposure to public water supply areas in Oregon [Chapter 8]

Abstract

The cause of recent wildfire catastrophes can be traced to multiple factors, including the expanding urban footprint (Radeloff et al. 2018), human ignitions (Nagy et al. 2018), droughts (Littell et al. 2016) and high-wind events (Abatzoglou et al. 2018). In 2018, over 58,000 wildfires burned 8.8 million acres in the western U.S. (NIFC 2018). As wildfire frequency and intensity increase (Westerling 2016, Abatzoglou et al. 2017), understanding the impacts of high-severity wildfire on ecosystem function is critical, particularly the negative effects on soils (Certini 2005) and drinking water source areas (Robinne et al. 2019).

Citation

Day, Michelle A.; Ringo, Chris; Ager, Alan. 2021. Assessment of wildfire exposure to public water supply areas in Oregon [Chapter 8]. In: Souder, Jon. Trees to tap: How forest practices affect Oregon’s municipal water. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, Extension Service. p. 248-264.