Articles

Background Prescribed fire is commonly used to manage surface fuels and stand structure in dry coniferous forests in the western United States. While the effectiveness of prescribed fire to manage fuel loads and live forest structure has been well documented, less is known about the shape of recovery trajectories more than a decade following treatment. We used up to 30 years of...

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) offers a promising approach for earthquake early warning (EEW) in settings where seismic networks are costly to maintain. By repurposing fiber-optic cables as dense strainmeter arrays, DAS enables real-time earthquake detection wherever those fibers are accessible. However, poor azimuthal coverage and challenges in estimating magnitude from strain...

“Actionable science” is a widely held standard for identifying the merits of natural resources research. Yet, science is often framed as actionable to a vaguely identified quintessential “manager” without defining either the intended manager or use. Generic descriptions lack precision for identifying end users or their needs, limiting methodological rigor in research design and leading...

Seismic waves generated by large, rapid landslides encode information about the source and can be analyzed rapidly following an event. Even remote landslides can pose hazards to downstream communities, so rapid detection and characterization using existing seismic monitoring networks could be beneficial. In this study, we expand on past regionally limited work by presenting a globally...

With over a century since the last major rupture affecting the wider Los Angeles region, tectonic stress has steadily built along the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems, raising concerns of an imminent large earthquake. Cajon Pass, located at the junction of these faults, represents a critical site for potential through-going ruptures in Southern California. We...

Fish inhabiting marine coastal and Great Lakes waters of the United States forage, migrate, and reproduce without regard to human-made boundaries. In the mid-20th century, the 32 states along the U.S. coasts and Great Lakes recognized the growing need for coordinated, interjurisdictional fisheries management and formed four interstate or international fisheries commissions through...

Context

This systematic literature review critically examines 162 articles on harmful algal bloom (HAB) modeling in riverine systems to uncover persistent gaps, redefine critical challenges, and propose trackable opportunities to advance future modeling efforts. Articles largely focused on site-specific applications (93%) across more than 80 rivers worldwide. Most modeled systems were large...

Understanding population responses to environmental change is critical for assessing vulnerability, resilience, and habitat management needs. We assessed Henslow’s Sparrow (Centronyx henslowii) abundance and breeding productivity in an isolated North Carolina grassland (1149 ha) that transitioned from unmanaged to fire-managed during 2011–2024. Fire management was initiated in 2016...

Detectable concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been observed in soils in remote areas and presumably originate from atmospheric deposition. These anthropogenic background concentrations may enable some PFAS to leach to groundwater at levels that exceed regulatory criteria for drinking water. However, anthropogenic background soil concentrations and their...

Changing rainfall patterns and intensifying rainfall extremes affect urban infrastructure and can increase flash-flood risk. Understanding how climate change has altered rainfall can support state and local agencies as they adapt and build resiliency. In this study, rainfall data from 23 weather stations in Florida were used to examine temporal and spatial trends over the period 1990...

Human population growth and changing settlement patterns fuel the development of urban fringe lands worldwide, with implications for biodiversity. We conducted a 12-year study of birds in the fast-developing urban fringe lands of the central Puget Sound region, Washington, USA, to examine the effect of development configuration on birds. We hypothesized that lower-intensity conservation