Return on investment from fuel treatments to reduce severe wildfire and erosion in a watershed investment program in Colorado.

Autor: Jones KW; Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA. Electronic address: Kelly.Jones@colostate.edu., Cannon JB; Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Saavedra FA; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Kampf SK; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Addington RN; The Nature Conservancy, Colorado Field Office, Boulder, CO, USA., Cheng AS; Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA; Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., MacDonald LH; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Wilson C; Department of Geosciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Wolk B; Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of environmental management [J Environ Manage] 2017 Aug 01; Vol. 198 (Pt 2), pp. 66-77. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 May 11.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.05.023
Abstrakt: A small but growing number of watershed investment programs in the western United States focus on wildfire risk reduction to municipal water supplies. This paper used return on investment (ROI) analysis to quantify how the amounts and placement of fuel treatment interventions would reduce sediment loading to the Strontia Springs Reservoir in the Upper South Platte River watershed southwest of Denver, Colorado following an extreme fire event. We simulated various extents of fuel mitigation activities under two placement strategies: (a) a strategic treatment prioritization map and (b) accessibility. Potential fire behavior was modeled under each extent and scenario to determine the impact on fire severity, and this was used to estimate expected change in post-fire erosion due to treatments. We found a positive ROI after large storm events when fire mitigation treatments were placed in priority areas with diminishing marginal returns after treating >50-80% of the forested area. While our ROI results should not be used prescriptively they do show that, conditional on severe fire occurrence and precipitation, investments in the Upper South Platte could feasibly lead to positive financial returns based on the reduced costs of dredging sediment from the reservoir. While our analysis showed positive ROI focusing only on post-fire erosion mitigation, it is important to consider multiple benefits in future ROI calculations and increase monitoring and evaluation of these benefits of wildfire fuel reduction investments for different site conditions and climates.
(Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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