Climate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds
The area burned annually by wildfires is expected to increase worldwide due to climate change. Burned areas increase soil erosion rates within watersheds, which can increase sedimentation in downstream rivers and reservoirs. However, which watersheds will be impacted by future wildfires is largely unknown. Using an ensemble of climate, fire, and erosion models, we show that post-fire sedimentation is projected to increase for nearly nine-tenths of watersheds by > 10% and for more than one-third of watersheds by > 100% by the 2041 to 2050 decade in the western USA. The projected increases are statistically significant for more than eight-tenths of the watersheds. In the western USA, many human communities rely on water from rivers and reservoirs that originates in watersheds where sedimentation is projected to increase. Increased sedimentation could negatively impact water supply and quality for some communities, in addition to affecting stream channel stability and aquatic ecosystems.
Citation Information
| Publication Year | 2017 |
|---|---|
| Title | Climate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds |
| DOI | 10.1002/2017GL073979 |
| Authors | Joel B. Sankey, Jason R. Kreitler, Todd Hawbaker, Jason L. McVay, Mary Ellen Miller, Erich R. Mueller, Nicole M. Vaillant, Scott E. Lowe, Temuulen T. Sankey |
| Publication Type | Article |
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Series Title | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Index ID | 70190547 |
| Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
| USGS Organization | Southwest Biological Science Center |
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Climate, Wildfire, and Erosion Data, Western US
These data were used to examine how post-fire sedimentation might change in western USA watersheds with future fire from the decade of 2001-10 through 2041-50. The data include previously published projections (Hawbaker and Zhu, 2012a, b) of areas burned by future wildfires for several climate change scenarios and general circulation models (GCMs) that we summarized for 471 watersheds of the weste - Connect