Impacts of Fire Management on Carbon Stock Stability in Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Project ID: J8W07100026
Federal Agency: National Park Service
Partner Institution: University of Washington
Fiscal Year: 2010
Initial Funding: $11,190
Total Funding: $115,163
Project Type: Technical Assistance
Project Disciplines: Biological
National Park: Pacific West Region California
Principal Investigator: Lutz, Jim
Agreement Technical Representative: Smith, Gus
Abstract: Forest biomass on Sierra Nevada landscapes constitutes one of the largest carbon stocks in
the state of California, and the stability of that carbon stock is tightly linked to fire and the ecological factors that drive fire regime. Recent research suggests that over a century of fire suppression and fuel accumulation in western forests have actually reduced the amount of carbon that such suppressed landscapes store, while increasing the likelihood of catastrophic, stand-replacing fire. For over 30 years, fire management at Yosemite (YOSE) and Sequoia & Kings Canyon (SEKI) National Parks has led the nation in restoring fire to park landscapes. However, the impacts of that restoration on the stability and magnitude of carbon stocks are not yet known. This collaborative project will quantify these effects over a 30-year timescale by leveraging detailed fire history, vegetation, and fuels datasets at YOSE and SEKI to quantify biomass in areas where fire has been suppressed vs. areas where fire has been restored. We plan to quantify the past growth rates of trees to determine their contribution to dynamic carbon pools, and relate these values to fire management history. The results of this project will be of immediate value to fire management at YOSE and SEKI, and will become more important in the future as National Park Service units will become increasingly held more accountable for the impacts of fire management activities on carbon stocks and resultant greenhouse gas emissions
Deliverables:
- Impacts of Fire Management on Carbon Stocks in Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks (Natural Resource Technical Report)