Progress 05/01/19 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience: Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) Foresters - providing user feedback on software development and research topics engaged in the design and implementation of research projects evaluating treatment influences on burn severity. Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Staff - providing support to collection and organization of data during the non-field season Skills for Undergraduate Participation in Ecological Research - mentored two undergraduate students as they developed and tested research questions related to this project Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative - This Fireshed group brings together scientists, foresters, and landowners in the region to promote resilient forests. We worked with the organization's leadership to identify research needs and presented research findings to the group. Colorado State University Warner College of Natural Resources (WCNR) internship program - compiling, digitizing, georeferencing data - training in how Science and Data fits into the Colorado State Forest Service, how we can use archival data and information concerning forest management and disturbances to better plan these activities moving forward WCNR Scientists and Professors - exploring unique ways to use the archives data to answer fundamental questions in natural resource science. We also worked with these professors to incorporate project activities into their courses. Colorado Forest Restoration Institute - CFRI leads collaborations between researchers, managers, and stakeholders to generate and apply locally-relevant, actionable knowledge to inform forest management strategies. We worked with them in multiple capacities, including partnering on a study to evaluate impact of forest treatments on burn severity and tree survivorship. We have also been sharing data between this project and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. They have provided field crews for this project to sample across treatments that burned in the Cameron Peak Fire. We have been working with CFRI to co-lead a field trip of forest managers and scientists to disseminate research from this project about pre-fire treatment effectiveness and to hear multiple perspectives on this work. University of Colorado Denver - We engaged partners at UC Denver by sharing data archived by this project, and submitted a collaborative proposal that was funded to expand upon this project's research. Boulder County Parks and Open Space - Boulder County manages large areas of forests along the Colorado Front Range. We have shared data from this project with them and incorporated their lands into research. We also have spent time in the field with their managers and identified critical research questions of theirs which spun into a proposal they funded (through UC Denver). Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Network - we engaged with this national network to provide research that informs their on-the-ground climate adaptive forest management trials. Members of this network also serve on our steering committee. Front Range Community College - guest lectured on climate change and Colorado's forests to forestry students in the college Department of Interior- Bureau of Indian Affairs - collaborating with BIA forester on Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) model calibration work The Nature Conservancy - The Nature Conservancy is an important partner in promoting forward-looking forest management in Colorado. We worked with staff from the Nature Conservancy to provide input on the study of the impacts of forest treatments on fire effects. NASA DEVELOP - The NASA DEVELOP program builds capacity in early career remote sensing professionals by hosting applied remote sensing projects that the team works on over 10 week projects. We mentored a team of four individuals as they supported this project's research evaluating treatment impact on burn severity. Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW) - The CPRW is an important stakeholder in the northern Front Range that promotes watershed protection through forest management. Engaged with them regularly as we studied the influence of treatments on burn severity in the Poudre River Watershed. Front Range Roundtable- is a coalition of individuals from agencies, local governments, environmental and conservation organizations, the academic and scientific communities, and industry and user groups, all with a commitment to forest health and fire risk mitigation along Colorado's Front Range. We presented our research to this group. Data Nuggets- This NSF funded group provides free classroom activities, co-designed by scientists and teachers, designed to bring contemporary research and authentic data into the classroom. We worked with a middle school class on an activity linking forest management to forest disturbances, and created an online video for classes to use. Society of American Foresters- The professional organization for foresters in the United States. We presented research on pre-fire treatment effectiveness at their annual convention. Ranch Managers- Ranches in Colorado manage large acreages of forest lands. We speak with a number of these ranch managers about climate adaptive forest management on a regular basis. Colorado West Land Trust- protects and enhances agricultural land, wildlife habitat and scenic lands in western Colorado to benefit the community at large, enrich lives, provide opportunities for outdoor recreation, and ensure our connection to land for generations to come. We presented to landowners in their organization about climate adaptive forest management in response to concerns they were raising about forest health on the western slope of Colorado. Workshops across the state held with CSFS partners and collaborators who engaged in participatory mapping and information synthesis for the Colorado Forest Action Plan, which will be hosted in the CO Forest Atlas data repository being developed under this project. Black Hills Energy, Inc. Colorado Department of Natural Resources Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment Colorado Forest Health Advisory Council Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University Colorado Natural Heritage Program, Colorado State University Colorado Parks and Wildlife Colorado Springs Utilities Colorado State Stewardship Steering Committee Conservation Planning Technologies, Inc. Council of Western State Foresters Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University Michigan Technical University Mountain Parks Electric, Inc. Mountain Studies Institute National Wild Turkey Federation Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University New Mexico State Forestry Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, USDA Forest Service Southern Ute Indian Tribe Technosylva, Inc. The Nature Conservancy Tri-state Generation and Transmission Association, Inc. USDA Forest Service Region 2 Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Western Area Power Administration Western Environment and Ecology, Inc. Xcel Energy, Inc. Changes/Problems:A funding delay at the University level alteredthe initial start date from June 2019 to August 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic restricted travel and changed the priorities of the Project. Focus shifted from acquiring data from 17 Field offices across the State to compiling unique datasets from prioritized case studies (State Forest and Boulder). Gaps in data sets and intuitional knowledge were found at the Field Offices due to files being misplaced, and inconsistencies in data collection. Then, the 2020 fire season was historic in Colorado. These uncharacteristically large and late season fires presented an opportunity to use the historical treatment data made available by this project to research the influences on past forest management on burn severity in these fires. Stakeholder demand for and interest in research on this topic is also high. Because of these factors and the alignment with the proposed research, we shifted research efforts to evaluate forest treatment effects on multiple variables including forest carbon storage, tree survivorship, burn severity, and others across two of the 2020 Colorado wildfires. The treatment effects field trip was postponed due to scheduling challenges and logistical issues but is still being planned to take place either this fall or spring 2024. This shift in focus reduced the effort spent on FVS calibration work (although research was still conducted, published, and presented on the FVS calibration) and in looking at forest carbon sequestration across the study area (although this work is underway through additional support from other funding sources and will be completed fall 2023). While we did complete FVS evaluation and calibration research for lodgepole pine forests, this calibration and evaluation approach using Forest Inventory and Analysis chronosequence data ran into challenges with tuning many interacting parameters and did not transfer well to other forest types of more mixed age and species composition. Therefore, we have not drafted an extension publication about lessons learned from FVS calibration and associated parameter values for various forest types in the Front Range of Colorado. This is the only measurable outcome defined in the project proposal that was not completed. The research conducted as part of this project studying the impacts of bark beetle outbreaks on forest carbon stocks and to simulate the impacts of interacting disturbances and climate change on forest structure and carbon storage were completed and published in a dissertation, but not yet as peer reviewed papers. Research looking at the effect of pre-fire forest management (i.e., prescribed burning and thinning) and the Calwood Fire on above and belowground carbon stocks is still in progress and moving towards publication. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Supported two PhD students Supported three early career scientists/professionals and one postdoctoral fellow Provided mentoring and support for 16 internships: two Colorado State Forest Service interns, 12 NASA DEVELOP interns, and 2 undergraduate research experiences through the Skills for Undergraduate Participation in Ecological Research (SUPER) program at Colorado State University. Students, early career scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and interns all received professional development, including chances to present and network with local stakeholders groups and national conferences (see reported products); participation in the Colorado Forest Action Plan Climate Adaptation Workshop (June 13-14, 2019); publish peer reviewed papers; gain experience with project planning, coordination, and stakeholder engagement; learn how to use GIS, remote sensing software, the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), Climate FVS, and machine learning modeling; and engage with Colorado state policy through the Colorado Natural and Working Lands Climate Task Force and Strategic Plan. Four Forest Inventory & Analysis revived GIS training and professional development; crewmembers used their off-season time to assist with data collection and digitization. One crewmember received training and professional development related to georeferencing and digitization of treatment polygons; they then applied this knowledge when helping to georeference the 1937 State Forest aerial imagery and when helping to create the Boulder Forest Atlas More than 60 CSFS Extension Foresters have been trained in three of the web-based applications developed in this project. A Research Associate was hired as a term position for this project, and was hired in 2021 as a regular position through leveraging state funding. During this project, the research associate attending the following trainings: Colorado Forest Action Plan Climate Adaption Workshop- June 13th and 14th, 2019 Data Management Plan workshop hosted by the Colorado State University Library - October 1, 2019 Tidy data in Excel workshop hosted by the Colorado State University Library - October 29, 2019 Georeferencing workshop hosted by the Geospatial Centroid at Colorado State University - December 2019 CSFS GIS trainings- Summer 2019 Python for Everyone- ERSI training GIS of the Rockies Conference- September 17, 2019 Programming for GIS I & II (NR 426 and 427)- Colorado State University Courses (6 weeks each) - 2021 Effective Edge Training- InteraWorks -2021 OneNote Training- InteraWorks - 2021 How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Research from this project has been presented at national conferences, stakeholder meetings, in classes, and at workshops. Results have also been documented in technical reports, a dissertation, and peer reviewed papers. Presentations: Swayze, N., Choic, C., Knowlton, G., Klisauskaite, J., Woodward, B., Vorster, A.G. (2021). Understanding the impact of forest management on the Cameron Peak and CalWood Fires. NASA DEVELOP public closeout presentation. April 19, 2021. Vorster, A.G. Historical considerations at the Colorado State Forest. Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Workshop. December 8, 2020. Klisauskaite, J., Vorster, A.G., Osborne, S., Zhang, M., Choi, C. Pre-fire forest treatment characterization within the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome Fires. Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Showcase, April 23, 2021. https://urs21-csu.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=E3-49-55-DB-22-65-32-83-8A-9E-CE-7C-D9-BF-6D-EA Zhang, M., Vorster, A.G., Osborne, S., Klisauskaite, J. Fuel Treatment Characteristics in the Calwood Fire, Colorado. Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Showcase, April 23, 2021. https://urs21-csu.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=5C-72-55-32-9F-21-7F-E3-A5-DA-39-28-80-CD-6F-42 Field, J., B. Bagdon, A.G. Vorster, T.H. Nguyen. 2021. An accessible, data-driven approach for robust regional calibration of the Forest Vegetation Simulator for improved stand structure and carbon density modeling. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, December 15. New Orleans, LA. Oral Presentation. Vorster, A.G., B. Woodward, N. Young, C. Stevens-Rumann, A. West Fordham, P. Evangelista. 2021. Effects of Forest Treatments on Burn Severity and Forest Resilience in Recent Colorado Wildfires. Society of American Foresters National Convention, November 4. Virtual. Poster Presentation Hettema, S., J. Rogers, I. Sugiura, E. Twaddell, A.G. Vorster. 2022. Mapping Forest Carbon Stocks to Understand Carbon Implications of Treatment and Wildfire. NASA DEVELOP presentation. April 19, 2021. Vorster, A.G., B. Woodward. 2021. Treatment and Fire Interactions in Recent Colorado Wildfires. Front Range Roundtable JAM Session, October 21. Oral Presentation. Vorster, A.G., B. Woodward. 2021. Treatment and Burn Severity Interactions in Recent Colorado Wildfires. Northern Colorado Fireshed Webinar Series, May 19. Oral Presentation. Vorster, A.G. 2022. Vegetation recovery and burn severity monitoring and Evaluation of pre-fire treatment effectiveness. Cameron Peak Fire Research Symposium. March 2. Oral Presentation. Choi, C.T.H., Twaddell, E., Swayze, N., Knowlton, G., Klisauskaite, J., Cunningham, S., Young, N., Buma, B., Woodward, B., Vorster, A.G. 2022. Understanding the Impact of Forest Management on the Cameron Peak and CalWood Fires. Pecora 2022. October 25, 2022. Oral Presentation. Choi, C.T.H., E., Swayze, N., Knowlton, G., Klisauskaite, J., Cunningham, S., Young, N., Woodward, B., Vorster, A.G. 2021. Understanding the Impact of Forest Management on the Cameron Peak and CalWood Fires. UC Berkeley Quaternary Scientific Journal Reading Group. March 20, 2021. Vorster, A.G., Romme, W. 2022. Broad strategies for dealing with environmental change. Glade Park Forest Health Webinar. March 10, 2022. Oral Presentation. Vorster, A.G. 2021. Climate change and Colorado's forests. Middle school classroom presentation for Data Nuggets. October 28, 2021. Online presentation and lesson. Sugiura, I., Twaddell, E., Vorster, A.G., Hettema, S., Rogers, J., Buma, B., Cunningham, S. 2022. Mapping Forest Carbon Stocks to Understand Carbon Implications of Treatment on Wildfire for the Calwood Fire, Boulder County Colorado. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. December, 2020. Poster presentation. Vorster, A.G., Osborne, S., West Fordham, A. 2022. Archives project: Preserving, modernizing, and applying CSFS data. 2022 Colorado State Forest Service Annual Meeting, November 9, 2022, Pueblo, CO. Carmody, N., Gordon, L., Teich, N., Virene, J. 2023. Evaluating Efficacy of Remote Sensing Imagery in Monitoring Forest Fuels Treatment Methods. NASA DEVELOP public closeout presentation. March 29, 2023. Two updates were sent to the CSFS Field Offices during the project discussing the goals and progress of the project. Various meetings with interested parties were held throughout the years - including the Advisory Council for the project and Foresters from various Field Offices. Presentation at the Colorado State Forest Service Annual Meeting in Pueblo Coloradoabout key datasets collected during this project and how they were used for research. November 9, 2022. Case study data is being shared with respective CSFS Field Offices. A state-funded fuels treatment dashboard has been created and is open access. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The long-term goal of this project was achieved; a growing network of collaborators are working together to enhance the sustainable management of Colorado's forests through improved data collection, accessibility, use, and synthesis. Products developed during this project will continue to be sustained, used, and expanded.The impact from this project continues, as it catalyzed the formation of new collaborations and has spawned multiple research projects on topics such as: post-fire tree regeneration across a gradient of post-fire forest management; a comprehensive forest carbon analysis framework for Colorado's forest ecosystems and wood product industry; improved understanding of carbon impacts to wildfire; the impacts of post-fire restoration treatments on vegetation and watershed recovery; and climate-smart considerations for post-fire tree planting. Objective (1) Data were acquired from seven Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) Field Offices. A total of 2,215 files were scanned, and two case studies were synthesized.During CSFS Field Office site visits, legacy knowledge concerning regional forest management history was documented in metadata associated with treatment data. In many cases, this project supported the last opportunity to acquire this legacy information. Case study (1): State forest: 16 historic timber harvest polygons were created for the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project. Harvests were digitized based on available CSFS, Google Earth, and USGS Earth Explorer aerial imagery. Imagery was compared to detect large-scale changes to the forest,from 1937 until 1981. 200 aerial images from 1937 were scanned and 37 were georeferenced for future research. This imagery shows pre-lumber camp stand conditions in the case study area; camps were established around 1940. Digitization of tree-level forest inventory data (1969-1971) in 29 prioritized stands was completed. Recorded information includes DBH, Species, Total Height, tree vigor, and tree cull amounts. Around 9,000 individual trees were recorded in the 29 prioritized stands. Data in Lodgepole dominant stands was utilized in comparison with current Cruise data to calibrate the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS). Case Study (2) Boulder: Completed digitization of a historic Forest Atlas for Boulder County with hand-drawn Forest Management Treatment polygons from (1970-2003). 15 map pages with 416 Treatments were georeferenced and digitized. Objective (2): Four web-based decision-support applications were developed and deployed during this project using the Agile software development methodology. Using testing within a staging environment, feedback was received from more than 100 CSFS Extension Foresters, Natural Resource Speclaists, Project Managers, and Administrators on three of these applications; the mobile and desktopGeoTracksand the Project and Activity Planner.GeoTracks makes accessing and summarizing the legacy CSFS data easy for practitioners; they can view these data in a web map on their mobile devices or laptops, share these maps with partners including land managers and land owners, and digitize new georeferenced data. The GeoTracks applications will be used to track all CSFS projects and activities moving forward, and data from the applications will be summarized in online dashboards and integrated in Federal reporting systems such as ForMap (SMART). The fourth web-based decision support application developed during this project is the File Explorer in the Colorado Forest Atlas website. This application is accessible by anyone through registration and signature of a data disclaimer. On the About page of the website, we have acknowledged this grant supporting the applications:https://coloradoforestatlas.org/about. Multiple trainings have been held since the deployment of these applications, resulting in more than 60 Foresters being trained in standardized methodology and operationalizing this technology. Objective (3): This research demonstrated the utility of bringing together historical and current data collected by the CSFS with other data sources to address questions shared by the CSFS, policy makers, agencies, and others involved in forest management. We conducted research that used data collected by the CSFS to (1) further knowledge of the impacts of forest disturbance on forest carbon stocks, (2) evaluate and calibrate forest growth-and-yield models, (3) modelimpacts of forest management and climate change on forest structure, function, and susceptibility to future disturbances, (4) evaluate the effects of a range of pre-fire forest treatments and a range of burn conditions on tree survivorship, forest carbon, and burn severity, and (5) establisha framework for thinking about forest treatments effects on wildfire more holistically and realistically. Some of the key lessons and advancements from this research include: Improved methods for quantifying dead tree biomass resulting from bark beetle outbreaks and potential biomass availability for bioproducts. Dead biomass was found to outsize live biomass for forest types most severely hit by bark beetle outbreaks in recent decades. The modeled impacts of climate change on stand structure, forest carbon, and disturbance susceptibility outsized the impacts of salvage harvesting of bark beetle impacted stands, highlighting the necessity of considering climate change impacts when evaluating management action even if uncertain and difficult. Multiple metrics of treatment effects on wildfire should be considered to give a more holistic view of the interactions between management and wildfire. The impact of forest management on mitigating impacts of severe wildfire on some metrics of ecosystem function such as wildlife habitat and watershed function are largely unknown. Treatments in the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire generally reduced burn severity, though a range of outcomes occurred. Treatments that remove surface fuels through burning or mechanical removal were most effective at reducing burn severity. Improved documentation of suppression activities and firefighter observations are needed to assess the impact of forest treatments on wildfire behavior. We also found and suggest specific improvements to forest treatment databases to better support forest management, wildfire incident response, and research. We identified and promoted specific forest management practices to improve resilience of forests to climate change impacts such as drought and wildfire. While analyses are still in progress, we are seeing that forest management did not mitigate forest carbon losses caused by the Calwood Fire. Forest growth and yield models have significant inaccuracies and bias for forest types we tested, and model performance can be improved using field data chronosequences. These research findings inform climate-adaptive forest management with associate benefits to watershed management, wildfire hazard reduction, wood product resources, wildlife habitat, and carbon storage. Objective (4):This project exceeded proposed targets for mentoring, engagement, teaching, and outreach. We disseminated research findings from the project through to a diversity of audiences through story maps, presentations, webinars, graduate and undergraduate courses, workshops, and publications. To name a few impacts, project activities supported the design of climate adaptive forest management treatments; informed state-level policy discussions about natural climate solutions; helped private landowners prepare for and respond to forest management challenges; resulted in two peer reviewed publications; and created opportunities for 16 interns, two graduate students, one postdoctoral fellow, and three early career scientists/professionals.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
o Vorster, A.G., Stevens-Rumann, C., Young, N., Woodward, B., Choi, C., Chambers, M.E., Cheng, A.S., Caggiano, M., Schultz, C., Thompson, M., Greiner, M., Aplet, G., Addington, R.N., Battaglia, M.A., Bowker. D., Bucholz. E., Buma, B., Evangelista, P., Huffman. D., Mueller, S., Rhoades. C., Romme. W.H., S�nchez Meador, A.J., Tinkham, W.T., Tuten, M., West Fordham, A., 2023. Metrics and considerations for evaluating how forest treatments alter wildfire behavior and effects. Journal of Forestry, fvad036, https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvad036
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