fire severity and bark beetle infestation in california elizabeth pascale, courtney lewis, and...
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Fire Severity and Bark Beetle Infestation in California
Elizabeth Pascale, Courtney Lewis, and Rebecca Fisher
Motivation
• Climate change altering ecosystem characteristics
• Suitable habitat for bark beetle increases to encompass more forests in the Western United States
• Increased fire severity in Western United States
Bark Beetle Risk
California forest acres at risk (identified in red on the map; risk is defined as 25% or more volume killed) to bark-beetle caused tree mortality over the next 15 years.
Bark Beetle in CA Forests
• Aerial survey results from 1994-2007 depicting the percent area flown with insect injury and percent of average precipitation throughout California. Source: USDA FS-Forest Health Monitoring
Source: www.fs.fed.us/r5/spf/fhp/socal/2008WBBconditions052908.pdf
Bark Beetle Acreage
San Bernadino:
360,936.98
Los Angeles:
4,356.47
Riverside:
165274.00
San Diego:
80,245.01
Bark Beetle vs. Fire
Severity of bark beetle induced mortality and its correlation to Fires in 2003.
Results
• In 2003 there is a noticeable correlation between dire severity and bark beetle induced mortality
• Lack of information to evaluate current or future trends
• To do so would require more time and more specific data collection
Conclusions
Focus:• Identifying correlation between wildfires and bark beetle
infestation in California. • Created maps with background information on California
– forest cover fire risk, – fire risk near urban area
• Attempted to map climate change but found the data hard to access.
• Data for bark beetle infestation/mortality was also very difficult to find, but we were able to find raster data for 2003 bark-beetle related mortality in Southern California and superimpose it over 2003 fire data.
• Found vector data from the U.S. Census of insect-related tree mortality for 4 Southern counties in 2003
• 1998-2007 fire data was extracted and isolated to create a different layer for each year (as well as an animation showing the fires) from a table containing data from California fires since as early as 1900.
• We wanted to show a similar time trend with bark beetle infestation/mortality, but the information is lacking.
• This might actually explain the state's weak response to bark beetle outbreaks and subsequent fires. We also found data for bark beetle infestation risk.