SPATIO-TEMPORAL VEGETATION AND CATCHMENT DYNAMICS FOLLOWING INFREQUENT FOREST WILDFIRE OUTBREAKS

ABSTRACTSPATIO-TEMPORAL VEGETATION AND CATCHMENT DYNAMICS FOLLOWING INFREQUENT FOREST WILDFIRE OUTBREAKS Ioana Bouvier, Ph.D George Mason University, 2024 Dissertation Director: Dr. Paul Houser While wildfire is an important driver of annual forest disturbance in Western United States, forest disturbance due to fire is infrequent in Eastern United States and in the Western United States Cascades Range. An evidence gap limits planning for possible wildfire outbreaks and their effects on forest watershed ecosystem dynamics and hydrological processes following infrequent fire weather compounded by drought events. This dissertation used a combination of statistical methods to control for climate variability and to examine historical streamflow in watersheds impacted by rare wildfire outbreaks. Additionally, cloud-computing approaches to estimate fire burn severity and vegetation recovery at fine temporal scales were evaluated. This dissertation found that vegetation recovery varied by burn severity and topography. An important finding from this research was that annual water yield increased following an uncommon fire outbreak in the Southern Appalachian Ecoregion, and this increase was not attributed to climate variability. Prior research focused on areas frequently impacted by wildfires in Western United States found that vegetation and hydrologic recovery vary depending on climate variability, type of disturbance and wildfire severity. This research contributes to an increased understanding of the potential impacts of infrequent wildfire. Recommendations for future research include the incorporation of dense, satellite-derived vegetation recovery time series in hydrologic methods and models.

Author

• Bouvier, Ioana

Identifier

hdl:1920/14794

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/14794