Wildfire effects on water quantity, water quality, and aquatic ecology: Seminar by Kevin Bladon of Oregon State

This map shows how 2020 West-side large fires impact city water supplies compared to other fires.

The California Fire Science Seminar Series is one of my favorites.  There’s also a Q&A afterwards with the presenter

Here’s a link to Kevin Bladon’s presentation from a few weeks ago. I thought the whole thing was interesting.

About 30 minutes in, there’s a discussion of some research on salvage logging and water quality/quantity and soils, with different studies finding different things.  During the Q&A, I asked Bladon whether he had any ideas based on his experience in the field, of preferred salvage practices. He did and I encouraged him to publish some kind of “helpful summary for practitioners.” We (various folks on the Zoom) had a discussion as to whether if such a paper were produced by him through OSU Extension, would it make it to NEPA people and sale planners in the Forest Service?  I wasn’t sure, so anyone who has an opinion, please chime in.

2 thoughts on “Wildfire effects on water quantity, water quality, and aquatic ecology: Seminar by Kevin Bladon of Oregon State”

  1. For NEPA people/sale planners, a peer-reviewed publication is preferred. They need to be using the “best available science”, and a peer-reviewed journal article is viewed as an indicator of that. Extension publications tend to have a different audience – in my experience it is usually family forests or small private forest landowners, not large landowners or federal land management agencies. In this case, a fire consortium (the PNW Fire Science Consortium?) producing a “research brief” based on a single or several peer-reviewed articles would be helpful. The Fire Science Consortia are more focused on federal land management agencies and large landowners and on application of current science.

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  2. Targeted literature/guidance is currently in the works. This will include a GTR, as well other material for private/industrial landowners.

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