OpportunityTitle: Influence of Fire and forest restoration
Description: The Valles Caldera National Preserve (VALL) is currently undergoing a landscape restoration project, funded under the DOI Resilient Landscapes program, to restore natural fire regimes to the forest and grassland watersheds on the Preserve. Large-scale restoration efforts involve forest thinning to reduce fuel loads, and prescribed and managed fires to further eliminate fuels and allow for natural fire regimes to return to the landscape. Fires can have varying impacts on watershed function, particularly with respect to water quality and discharge amounts and timing. Post-fire flash floods can result if watersheds are burned severely. VALL has been subjected to two recent large-scale uncharacteristic wildfires (the 2011 Las Conchas fire, and the 2013 Thompson Ridge fire), which led to multiple post-fire flash floods and subsequent damage to fisheries and aquatic macro-invertebrate communities on severely-burned watersheds. While fish and invertebrate communities are currently recovering, ongoing restoration efforts using prescribed fires may continue to impact these biological resources. The goal of the proposed work will be to monitor and characterize response and rate of recovery of the aquatic systems subjected to wildfire and restoration activities throughout the VALL.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: .
GrantorContactText: Grants Management Specialist Kelly Adams &lt;br/&gt;Kelly_Adams@nps.gov&lt;br/&gt;