Water, Climate Change, Thinning Trees and “Logging Without Use”

In the news clips this morning, I ran across this piece about Chief Tidwell’s recent testimony that:

America’s wildfire season lasts two months longer than it did 40 years ago and burns up twice as much land as it did in those earlier days because of the hotter, drier conditions produced by climate change, the country’s forest service chief told Congress on Tuesday.

“Hotter, drier, a longer fire season, and lot more homes that we have to deal with,” Tidwell told the Guardian following his appearance. “We are going to continue to have large wildfires.” …

Climate change was a key driver of those bigger, more explosive fires. Earlier snow-melt, higher temperatures and drought created optimum fire conditions. …

“This is a product of having a longer fire season, and having hotter, drier conditions so that the fuels dry out faster. So when we get a start that escapes initial attack, these fires become explosive in that they become so large so fast that it really limits our ability to do anything.” …

The above was from an article here (from the Guardian in the UK that also says Americans are increasingly building homes in “the wilderness”), that also says:

“It’s hard for the average member of the public to understand how things have changed,” Tidwell said.

“Ten years ago in New Mexico outside Los Alamos we had a fire get started. Over seven days, it burned 40,000 acres. In 2011, we had another fire. Las Conchas. It also burned 40,000 acres. It did it in 12 hours,” he went on.

Climate change was a key driver of those bigger, more explosive fires. Earlier snow-melt, higher temperatures and drought created optimum fire conditions.

Say it ain’t so, Tom.. tell us you were misquoted.
Really? In ten years we are seeing the difference? Due to climate change? Perhaps the weather was different between the two fires… or the status of the fuels.. or perhaps some fire suppression strategies were less effective.. Who is writing this stuff? Chief Tidwell is right… if quoted accurately..it is very hard for this member of the public to understand his points when they seem..not valid.

So I don’t understand the landscape of partisanship, but Hot Air appears to be a partisan blog. Nevertheless, they had a link to this article, which is of more interest. I looked up the authors and one had Yale F&ES credentials and the other D administration credentials.

I don’t know about the hydrology of it.. what I think is interesting is that the authors want to remove trees but kind of write off the timber industry as a way to do it.. because..

So how do we unlock the nexus to replenish the Earth? A century’s accumulation of dry fuel in public lands makes it too expensive and risky — for people, property, habitats or carbon emissions — to unleash prescribed fires throughout our 16-million-acre ponderosa tinderbox. Mechanical thinning generates popular distrust as long as timber industry chain saws try to cut “high grade” valuable mature growth to compensate for less profitable small-diameter “trash trees.”

Happily, a lumber mill’s trash has now become a water user’s treasure. Thirsty downstream interests could organize to restrict thinning to scrawny excess trees simply for the purpose of releasing the liquid assets they consume. Western water rights markets value an acre-foot at $450 to $650 and rising. So rather than compete with forests for rain and snow, private and public institutions could invest $1,000 per acre (average U.S. Forest Service price) to cut down fire-prone trash trees, yielding at least $1,100 to $1,500 worth of vital water. To reduce fuel loads and increase runoff, the water-fire nexus pays for itself.

It’s up to silviculture folks to say how many big trees need to go in a thinning. I don’t know why it’s OK to write off an entire industry who can help pay for this, and the authors seem to be assuming that all the trees that need to be thinned are “trash”. But as we see from Larry’s photos, in a stand of big trees, thinning smaller trees means that they are still big “enough” to be commercial. We could even call this attitude “logging without use” (remember “logging without laws”).. stands need thinning but using the trees is not good. Frankly, I just don’t get it.

Anyway, I think the op-ed is well worth reading in terms of making the case for treatment. I don’t know if their hydrologic statements are accurate, but I think it’s worth thinking about the idea that you could blame fire suppression, and dense stands and drought for some of the increase in fires, and not just climate change.

First, the past century of fire suppression has resulted in roughly 112 to 172 more trees per acre in high-elevation forests of the West. That’s a fivefold increase from the pre-settlement era.

Second, denser growth means that the thicker canopy of needles will intercept more rain and sSecond, denser growth means that the thicker canopy of needles will intercept more rain and snow, returning to the sky as vapor 20% to 30% of the moisture that had formerly soaked into the forest floor and fed tributaries as liquid. But let’s conservatively ignore potential vapor losses. Instead, assume that the lowest average daily sap flow rate is 70 liters per tree for an open forest acre of 112 new young trees. Even then, this over-forested acre transpires an additional 2.3 acre-feet of water per year, enough to meet the needs of four families.

Third, that pattern adds up. Applying low-end estimates to the more than 7.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada conifer forests suggests the water-fire nexus causes excess daily net water loss of 58 billion liters. So each year, post-fire afforestation means 17 million acre-feet of water can no longer seep in or trickle down from the Sierra to thirsty families, firms, farms or endangered fisheries.

10 thoughts on “Water, Climate Change, Thinning Trees and “Logging Without Use””

  1. Of course, if we restricted activities to my restoration guidelines, I think we would be successful in accomplishing goals without controversy by reducing stocking levels to match annual rainfall amounts. It is also important to retain enough large trees for wildlife and forest structure. We also need to restore species compositions to a more “natural” spectrum. Removing invasive ladder fuel species will help forests survive drought, bark beetles and wildfires. Active management can mean the difference between keeping seed sources on the land, rather than embracing stand replacement fires that will require massive treeplanting efforts. Often, such efforts also require salvage logging and herbicide application to reforest damaged lands.

    Or, we can go with the preservationist “industry” and their “whatever happens” strategy.

    Reply
    • Trees between 10″ and 18″ dbh are the main trees we are taking out, here in California. Other trees up to 29.9″ dbh can be taken if they are crowding larger and better trees. Trees 30″ dbh and over are left, regardless of condition or crowding. So, I guess we could say we are “cleaning up the forest of trash trees”, eh? Additionally, smaller trees can be removed as biomass, further reducing ladder fuels and making our forests more resilient.

      Reply
  2. Here’s what Tidwll said in his Senate testimony:

    “In 2012 over 9.3 million acres burned in the United States. The fires of 2012 were massive in size, with 51 fires exceeding 40,000 acres. Of these large fires, 14 exceeded 100,000 acres (NICC 2012). The increase in large fires in the west coincides with an increase in temperatures and early snow melt in recent years. This means longer fire seasons. The length of the fire season has increased by over two months since the 1970s (Westerling, 2006).

    “We estimate that 65 to 82 million acres of National Forest System lands are in need of fuels and forest health treatments—up to 42 percent of the entire system. Part of the problem is severe drought, resulting in extreme fire weather and very large fires. At the same time landscapes are becoming more susceptible to fire impacts, more and more Americans are choosing to build their home in wild lands. The number of housing units within half a mile of a national forest grew from 484,000 in 1940 to 1.8 million in 2000. The number of housing units within national forest boundaries rose from 335,000 in 1940 to 1.2 million in 2000. Forest Service estimates indicate a total of almost 400 million acres of all vegetated lands are at moderate to high risk from uncharacteristically large wildfires, and over 70,000 communities are at risk.”

    Full text here: http://wp.me/aGtVn-3B2

    Reply
    • So he didn’t actually say this:

      “Ten years ago in New Mexico outside Los Alamos we had a fire get started. Over seven days, it burned 40,000 acres. In 2011, we had another fire. Las Conchas. It also burned 40,000 acres. It did it in 12 hours,” he went on.

      I wonder where it came from?

      Reply
    • It’s too bad Tidwell is trying to blame climate change on the increase of size and intensity of western wildfires the past two decades:

      “The increase in large fires in the west coincides with an increase in temperatures and early snow melt in recent years. This means longer fire seasons. The length of the fire season has increased by over two months since the 1970s (Westerling, 2006).”

      The truth is that it is because of forest mismanagement and has nothing to do with changing weather patterns. Westerling’s conclusions apparently need some closer scrutiny. Try the 1930s as a comparison, or the 1860s. Or 1902-1910. Or the Tillamook Fires of 1933 to 1951.

      “Fire season” for western Oregon — for which we have good records going back 160+ years — has not changed in all that time. Fuel loads have changed a lot. Fires follow fuels. I’m guessing the patterns of wildfire season beginnings and duration are the same for Wisconsin, California, New Mexico, Florida, and Canada, too. Same with the correlation of fuels to fire sizes and intensities.

      Question: Why aren’t foresters having these same problems on tribal, state, and industrial lands? Why haven’t their fire seasons become “two months longer” in the past 40 years?

      Note: “Climate” is often measured as a 30-year average of weather patterns, including extreme events. 40 years is insufficient time to claim changing climate conditions. Does Tidwell’s/Westerlings’ conclusion make sense for the past 200 years? Nope.

      Tidwell needs to start taking personal responsibility for the way his agency is operated and stop blaming the weather. It makes him appear unaccountable and self serving. Not to say a terrible forestland manager for not addressing the actual problems he should be dealing with, rather than making excuses. An obscure paper by a trained economist is not a lot to hang your hat on when it comes to resolving current wildfire problems. Or related economic problems either, apparently.

      Reply
      • Certainly, if we could magically “fix” our climate, we would still have overstocked forests at risk to the same hazards as we have today. More groundwater means less bark beetles. It is awfully hard to use preservation to increase water tables and spring flows. American Indians KNEW this, and reduced the water uptake from forest vegetations. I think Tidwell knows all about the forest problems but, he has to toe the political party line, as have his predecessors. If his little white lies can convince the public and the Judges that active management is necessary, shouldn’t we let that scenario happen?

        Climate change and active management both have their “deniers”. Clinging to shreds of doubt is a poor excuse for scientific realities. The way I see it, both ideas are intricately twined together. Doing nothing about them will impact the future, in ways we probably haven’t fully envisioned. Unintended consequences will be embraced by the deniers, discounting the impacts as negligible.

        Reply
        • Kevin:

          Not on the portion of the globe I live on. Also, it appears that current global climate conditions are well within normal fluctuations over time. Some scientists theorize that past climate changes — such as when we left the last Ice Age (our “normal” climate) — can be very rapid and occur in the space of a few months or years. Volcanic disturbances on global patterns would be one type of such events.

          Besides, perceived variations in climate doesn’t mean we get to redefine out words. Climate is still a 30-year average, and it’s still well within its normal range.

          Reply
  3. In many of the discussions of forest management one subject area is often missing, the need for renewable natural resources to support the population of the United States. For example, while we might be able to continue to import resources such as wood, water is another issue as is soil. In these discussions, especially about national forests, it might be well to consider why the forests were created, and the role they play in sutaining our ability to live well in so many areas of the US..

    Reply

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