Integrated Analysis for Management of Fire and Fuels, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecological Processes, and Conservation of Sensitive Aquatic Species

Charlie Luce, Bruce Rieman, Paul Hessburg, Carol Miller, and Anne Black

USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station (1,2,4,5) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (3)

Hazardous fuels projects designed to mitigate large wildfires can  conflict with habitat protection needs for threatened, endangered, and sensitive aquatic species.  Conflict emerges from uncertainty over whether large wildfires or the fuels management activities represent a greater threat to the long-term persistence of sensitive species and the quality and extent of their habitats. Managers need to identify where goals of fuels management, ecological restoration in both terrestrial and aquatic systems, and sensitive species management conflict or converge with one another. Both cases exist, but the relative risks may vary dramatically with landscape and ecological context. To meet multiple demands of watershed/habitat protection and improvement and hazardous fuels reduction, managers must assess tradeoffs among vulnerability and isolation of aquatic species and habitats, hydrologic connectivity between hill slopes and critical habitats, and the likelihood of damaging events.  We propose a framework for a spatially explicit decision analysis that organizes knowledge of aquatic species and habitat issues, watershed processes, and the management objectives of terrestrial vegetation, wildfire, and fuels. Our framework can be directly integrated with the Fire Effects Planning Framework (FEPF), an existing tool that helps managers spatially identify and track where wildfire may provide ecological and social benefits and where it may pose significant risks to management goals and socioeconomic values. FEPF is used at a variety of planning scales to assist in land management plan revision, Fire Management Plan updates, landscape scale fuels treatment planning, and incident support.  FEPF currently defines benefits based primarily on vegetative stand condition and considers watershed and fisheries as constraints.  The proposed decision support model instead will allow the potential benefits to both terrestrial and aquatic systems to be considered.  Our preliminary results suggest a significant opportunity exists for strategic placement of fuels treatment to simultaneously resolve both terrestrial and aquatic issues.

corresponding author:

Charlie Luce
USDA Forest Service,
Rocky Mountain Research Station
322 E Front St., Suite 401
Boise, ID 83702
208-373-4382
cluce@fs.fed.us