Modeling the Risk Reduction Benefit of Forest Management Using a Case Study in the Lake Tahoe Basin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4240614 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samuel G Evans (University of California, Berkeley), Tim G Holland (0000-0003-1831-0747, University of California, Berkeley), Jonathan W Long (0000-0003-0474-0463, Pacific Southwest Research Station), Charles Maxwell, C J Maxwell (North Carolina State University), Robert M Scheller (0000-0002-7507-4499, North Carolina State University), Evan Patrick (0009-0005-9539-021X, University of California, Berkeley), Matthew D Potts (0000-0001-7442-3944, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Conservation Ecology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1195-5449 • E-ISSN: 1708-3087 |
| Publisher | Resilience Alliance (PUBLISHER • CA) |
| DOI | 10.5751/es-13169-270218 |
| OpenAlex | W4293202139 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 12 |
Across the United States, wildfire severity and frequency are increasing, placing many properties at risk of harm or destruction. We quantify and compare how different forest management strategies designed to increase forest resilience and health reduce the number of properties at risk from wildfire, focusing on the Lake Tahoe Basin of California and Nevada. We combine landscape change simulations (including climate change, wildfire, and management effects) with scenarios of current and plausible fuel treatment activities and parcel-scale fire risk analysis. Results suggest that more aggressive fuel treatment activities that treat more area on the landscape, whether through mechanical and hand thinning or prescribed fire, dramatically lower the fire probability in the region and lead to a corresponding lower risk of property loss. We estimate that relative to recent practices of focusing management in the wildland–urban interface, more active forest management can reduce property loss risk by 45%–76%, or approximately 2600–4900 properties. The majority of this risk reduction is for single family residences, which constitute most structures in the region. Further, we find that the highest risk reduction is obtained through strategies that treat a substantially greater area than is currently treated in the region and allows for selective wildfires to burn for resource objectives outside of the wildland–urban interface. These results highlight the importance of more active forest management as an effective tool in reducing the wildfire risk to capital assets in the region
Agroforestry · Business · Climate change · Disaster risk reduction · Environmental resource management · Firefighting · Forest management · Geography · Psychological resilience · Risk management · Thinning · Wildfire suppression · Wildland–urban interface · Environmental Science · Fire effects on ecosystems · Flood Risk Assessment and Management · Landslides and related hazards · Ecology · Forestry
Keeping up with the landscapes
Simulating wildlife habitat dynamics over the next century to help inform best management strategies for biodiversity in the Lake Tahoe Basin, California
The management costs of alternative forest management strategies in the Lake Tahoe Basin
Evaluating pathways to social and ecological landscape resilience
The potential for fuel reduction to reduce wildfire intensity in a warming California
Quantifying the smoke-related public health trade-offs of forest management
Rapid growth of the US wildland-urban interface raises wildfire risk
Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests
Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes
Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984–2011
The impact of land ownership, firefighting, and reserve status on fire probability in California
Multi-attribute evaluation of landscape-level fuel management to reduce wildfire risk
The relative influence of climate and housing development on current and projected future fire patterns and structure loss across three California landscapes
Insights Into Wildfire Mitigation Decisions Among Wildland–Urban Interface Residents
Mapping wildfire evacuation vulnerability in the western US
U.S. wildfire governance as social-ecological problem
Forest management under uncertainty
Frequency of disturbance mitigates high-severity fire in the Lake Tahoe Basin, California and Nevada
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |