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Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply Kaitlyn Hacker [email protected]

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Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply Kaitlyn Hacker Kaitlynhacker32@Gmail.Com The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Master's Projects and Capstones Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects Spring 5-22-2015 Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply Kaitlyn Hacker [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone Part of the Environmental Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Hacker, Kaitlyn, "Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply" (2015). Master's Projects and Capstones. 149. https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone/149 This Project/Capstone is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Projects and Capstones by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This Master's Project Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply by Kaitlyn Hacker is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of: Master of Science in Environmental Management at the University of San Francisco Submitted: Received: ...................................……….. ................................…………. Kaitlyn Hacker Date Christopher Ruehl, Ph.D. Date Post-Fire Sedimentation and the Risk to Sierra Nevada Water Supply Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3 1.1 The Importance of Forested Areas for Water Supply ................................................... 3 1.2 Importance of Wildfires in Forested Ecosystems .......................................................... 3 1.3 Wildfire Frequency, Size and Severity ................................................................................ 4 1.4 Wildfire Direct, Indirect Impacts and Contaminants of Concern ............................. 4 1.5 Sediment Transport ................................................................................................................... 5 1.6 Land Management Post Fire ................................................................................................... 6 1.7 Key Questions ............................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Evaluating Fire Severity ................................................................................................. 8 2.1 Fire Severity .................................................................................................................................. 8 2.2 Monitoring Burn Severity ..................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 3: Erosion and Sedimentation ....................................................................................... 14 3.1 Overland Flow and Sedimentation.................................................................................... 14 3.2 Sediment, water quality, and water treatment ............................................................ 17 3.3 Factors influencing post fire erosion ............................................................................... 18 3.4 Suspended sediment and turbidity ................................................................................... 20 3.5 Large Scale Erosion: Debris Flows .................................................................................... 21 Chapter 4: Recent large, severe fires in the Sierra Nevada Region .................................. 22 4.1 Rim Fire ....................................................................................................................................... 23 4.2 Sediment laden flooding ....................................................................................................... 35 4.3 Debris Flows .............................................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 5: Land Management Post Fire ...................................................................................... 37 5.1 Land Management Goals ....................................................................................................... 37 5.2 Erosion Control ......................................................................................................................... 38 5.3 Salvage Logging ........................................................................................................................ 39 5.4 Rim Fire Revisited ................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 6 Conclusions/Recommendations ............................................................................... 48 2 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The Importance of Forested Areas for Water Supply Forests throughout the world are invaluable resources not only because of the flora and fauna that they support, but also because of the ecosystem services that they provide. Ecosystem services are benefits people gain from the environment (Brauman et al. 2007). Forest ecosystem services include carbon sequestration, natural water storage, and large quantities of high-quality drinking water (Bladon et al. 2014). Healthy forests have been described as water factories that intercept precipitation, increase groundwater, slow runoff, reduce flooding, and purify water, while also providing ample habitat for wildlife (Sedell et al. 2000). As water demand continues to increase, the importance of maintaining healthy forests becomes even more crucial. In the United States it is estimated that two-thirds of municipalities receive the majority of their drinking water supplies from forested areas (Bladon et al. 2014; Smith et al. 2011). In California, the Sierra Nevada region only accounts for about 25% of the total land area, yet 60% of the state’s developed water supply (Sierra Nevada Conservancy 2013). Economically, the region is important to the state not just for its water supply, but also because of major hydropower projects and the production of wood products (Sierra Nevada Conservancy 2013). Unfortunately, many of these forested regions are being increasingly threatened by the risk of wildfire and in turn so are the water supplies they support. 1.2 Importance of Wildfires in Forested Ecosystems Wildfires are a natural ecosystem process and not all fires are catastrophic. Many ecosystems are adapted to fire, and fire suppression can lead to adverse consequences. Fire has been described as a “global herbivore” in that it consumes biomass and helps define species composition (Bond and Keely 2005). Frequent low intensity fires can reduce the height of dominant woody plants, reduce surface biomass, and allow small herbaceous plants with high light requirements to co-exist (Bond and Keeley 2005). In 3 areas where historically there were frequent fires, fire suppression can change the species occupancy, facilitate tree invasions into grasslands, exclude small herbaceous plants, increase the accumulation of organic matter, and create more uniform tree strands (Steel et al. 2015). Conifer forests in southwestern North America historically had relatively frequent, low intensity surface fires, which resulted in lower tree density and greater plant heterogeneity (Bond and Keeley 2005). Fire suppression has increased tree density in forests by at least an order of magnitude and shaded out much of the diversity in the herbaceous understory (Bond and Keeley 2005). The overall increase in woody biomass and organic matter due to suppression creates more fire fuel, which can result in larger, more severe fires. 1.3 Wildfire Frequency, Size and Severity Since the 1980’s there has been an increase in the number of large, more severe wildfires throughout much of the western United States, and there is strong evidence that this trend will continue (Miller et al. 2008; Smith et al. 2011). In the Sierra Nevada region the increase of large, severe wildfires poses a major risk to important watersheds. Fire regimes in a given area are defined by their pattern of frequency, season, type, and extent in a landscape. As a results of climate change, fire seasons in the western US are also occurring earlier and lasting longer (Bladon et al. 2014; Miller et al. 2009). Climate change coupled with drought and human proximity to forested areas will continue to increase the prevalence of large, more severe wildfires in forests with abundant biomass. More severe wildfires can have more drastic effects on vegetation replacement and greater impacts to water quality and quantity. 1.4 Wildfire Direct, Indirect Impacts and Contaminants of Concern Wildfire impacts can be considered either direct or indirect. Direct impacts include immediate consequences of a wildfire such as plant injury and mortality, soil heating, organic matter fuel consumption, and smoke production (Keane 2009). First- order direct impacts drive second-order indirect impacts, and examples of second-order 4 impacts include erosion, vegetative succession, and altered ecosystem processes (Keane 2009; Nyman et al. 2013). This paper will focus on the direct impacts of fire on soil properties and the indirect impacts on hydrology, erosion, and subsequent
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