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International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Prioritising fuels reduction for water supply protection

Benjamin M. Gannon A B G , Yu Wei B , Lee H. MacDonald C , Stephanie K. Kampf C , Kelly W. Jones D , Jeffery B. Cannon A , Brett H. Wolk A , Antony S. Cheng A B , Robert N. Addington E and Matthew P. Thompson F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University, 1472 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.

B Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, 1472 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.

C Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, 1476 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.

D Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, 1480 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.

E The Nature Conservancy, Colorado Field Office, 2424 Spruce Street, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.

F USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 240 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA.

G Corresponding author. Email: benjamin.gannon@colostate.edu

International Journal of Wildland Fire 28(10) 785-803 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF18182
Submitted: 15 October 2018  Accepted: 27 February 2019   Published: 17 April 2019

Abstract

Concerns over wildfire impacts to water supplies have motivated efforts to mitigate risk by reducing forest fuels. Methods to assess fuel treatment effects and prioritise their placement are needed to guide risk mitigation efforts. We present a fuel treatment optimisation model to minimise risk to multiple water supplies based on constraints for treatment feasibility and cost. Risk is quantified as the expected sediment impact costs to water supplies by combining measures of fire likelihood and behaviour, erosion, sediment transport and water supply vulnerability. We demonstrate the model’s utility for prioritising fuel treatments in two large watersheds in Colorado, USA, that are critical for municipal water supply. Our results indicate that wildfire risk to water supplies can be substantially reduced by treating a small portion of the watersheds that have dense, fire-prone forests on steep slopes that drain to water supply infrastructure. Our results also show that the cost of fuel treatments outweighs the expected cost savings from reduced sediment inputs owing to the low probability of fuel treatments encountering wildfire and the high cost of thinning forests. This highlights the need to expand use of more cost-effective treatments, like prescribed fire, and to identify fuel treatment projects that benefit multiple resources.

Additional keywords: erosion, fuel treatment effectiveness, sediment, spatial optimisation, wildfire risk assessment.


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