A Postfire Restoration Prioritization Tool for Chaparral Shrublands: Webinar

Dr. Mark De Guzman, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at University of California, Davis and member of Team Biodiversity for the Connecting Wildlands and Communities Project recently contributed to a webinar entitled, “A Postfire Restoration Prioritization Tool for Chaparral Shrublands.” Catch what you missed here!

Dr. Mark De Guzman, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at University of California, Davis and member of Team Biodiversity for the Connecting Wildlands and Communities Project recently contributed to a webinar entitled, “A Postfire Restoration Prioritization Tool for Chaparral Shrublands.”

Dr. De Guzman joined his colleagues and CWC partners from UC Davis and the US Forest Service in describing and demonstrating the Post-fire Restoration Prioritization (PReP) tool they developed for chaparral shrublands to aid resource managers with early detection and prioritization of degraded chaparral landscapes in need of restoration. The PReP tool incorporates information on the post-fire regeneration strategy of plant communities and its interaction with fire history, pre- and post-fire drought, and non-native annual species to predict where recovery may be impeded, thereby identifying candidate areas for restoration. The tool also integrates spatial data on erosion risk for recent fires, so that areas in need of restoration can be prioritized for hillslope stabilization. 

In this webinar, the team demonstrated the development of the tool using the Copper Fire and illustrated its applicability in the field with data from the Powerhouse Fire, both on the Angeles National Forest. Dr. De Guzman described the complementary research he has been leading, focused on the effects of fire on biomass recovery and carbon stocks in chaparral shrublands that will be used to expand the PReP tool. Building on remote sensing data, Dr. De Guzman is integrating biomass data from the literature and fire history to spatially estimate how carbon stocks are affected by fire-induced vegetation change across the landscape.

Overall this work is critical in furthering understanding of how chaparral responds to environmental stressors such as fire and drought and how to mitigate those effects. To learn more, please visit: http://www.cafiresci.org/events-webinars-source/category/prepchaparral