scholarly journals Visualizing When, Where, and How Fires Happen in U.S. Parks and Protected Areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 333
Author(s):  
Nicole C. Inglis ◽  
Jelena Vukomanovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Park Service

Fire management in protected areas faces mounting obstacles as climate change alters disturbance regimes, resources are diverted to fighting wildfires, and more people live along the boundaries of parks. Evidence-based prescribed fire management and improved communication with stakeholders is vital to reducing fire risk while maintaining public trust. Numerous national fire databases document when and where natural, prescribed, and human-caused fires have occurred on public lands in the United States. However, these databases are incongruous and non-standardized, making it difficult to visualize spatiotemporal patterns of fire and engage stakeholders in decision-making. We created interactive decision analytics (“VISTAFiRe”) that transform fire history data into clear visualizations of the spatial and temporal dimensions of fire and its management. We demonstrate the utility of our approach using Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park as examples of protected areas experiencing fire regime change between 1980 and 2017. Our open source visualizations may be applied to any data from the National Park Service Wildland Fire Events Geodatabase, with flexibility to communicate shifts in fire regimes over time, such as the type of ignition, duration and magnitude, and changes in seasonal occurrence. Application of the tool to Everglades and Big Cypress revealed that natural wildfires are occurring earlier in the wildfire season, while human-caused and prescribed wildfires are becoming less and more common, respectively. These new avenues of stakeholder communication are allowing the National Park Service to devise research plans to prepare for environmental change, guide resource allocation, and support decision-making in a clear and timely manner.

Fire Management of Rangelands in the Kimberley Low-Rainfall Zone: a Review.

1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
AB Craig
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
General Management ◽  
Noaa Avhrr ◽  
Local Experience ◽  
Definition Of

This paper examines a range of environmental, research and practical issues affecting fire management of pastoral lands in the southern part of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Although spinifex grasslands dominate most leases, smaller areas of more productive pastures are crucially important to many enterprises. There is a lack of local documentation of burning practices during traditional Aboriginal occupation; general features of the fire regime at that time can be suggested on the basis of information from other inland areas. Definition of current tire regimes is improving through interpretation of NOAA-AVHRR satellite imagery. Irregular extensive wildfires appear to dominate, although this should be confirmed by further accumulation, validation and analysis of fire history data. While these fires cause ma,jor difficulties. controlled burn~ng is a necessary part of station management. Although general management guidelines have been published. local research into tire-grazing effects has been very limited. For spinifex pastures, reconimendations are generally consistent with those applying elsewhere in northern Australia. They favour periodic burning of mature spinifex late in the year, before or shortly after the arrival of the first rains, with deferment of grazing. At that time. days of high fire danger may still be expected and prediction of fire behaviour is critical to burning decisions. Early dry-season burning is also required for creating protective tire breaks and to prepare for burning later in the year. Further development of tools for predicting fire behaviour, suited to the discontinuous fuels characteristic of the area, would be warranted. A range of questions concerning the timing and spatial pattern of burning, control of post-fire grazing, and the economics of fire management, should be addressed as resources permit. This can be done through a combination of opportunistic studies, modelling and documentation of local experience. The development of an expert system should be considered to assist in planning and conducting burning activities. Key words: Kimberley, fire regimes, fire management, pastoralism, spinifex

scholarly journals Valuing Our National Parks: An Ecological Economics Perspective

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Paul Sutton ◽  
Sophia Duncan ◽  
Sharolyn Anderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Real Estate ◽  
Annual Budget ◽  
Park Service

The annual budget for the United States National Park Service was roughly $3 billion in 2016. This is distributed amongst 405 National Parks, 23 national scenic and historic trails, and 60 wild and scenic rivers. Entrance fees and concessions generate millions of dollars in income for the National Park Service; however, this metric fails to account for the total value of the National Parks. In failing to consider the value of the ecosystem services provided by the National Parks, we fail to quantify and appreciate the contributions our parks make to society. This oversight allows us to continue to underfund a valuable part of our natural capital and consequently damage our supporting environment, national heritage, monetary economy, and many of our diverse cultures. We explore a simple benefits transfer valuation of the United States’ national parks using National Land Cover Data from 2011 and ecosystem service values determined by Costanza et al. This produces an estimate suggesting the parks provide $98 billion/year in ecosystem service value. If the natural infrastructure ‘asset’ that is our national park system had a budget comparable to a piece of commercial real estate of this value, the annual budget of the National Park Service would be roughly an order of magnitude larger at something closer to $30 billion rather than $3 billion.

A Life in the Practice of Anthropology: Muriel Crespi and the Development of the Ethnography Program in the National Parks

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen Schafft
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Park Service

This issue of Practicing Anthropology is devoted to an exposition and discussion of the seminal work of Muriel (Miki) Crespi and its impact on the United States National Park Service (NPS). Changes that Crespi initiated and achieved with the collaboration of colleagues greatly enhanced the commemoration and documentation of the heritage of varied ethnic groups around whose lives and artifacts our national parks have been developed.

scholarly journals Valuing Our National Parks: An Ecological Economics Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C. Sutton ◽  
Sophia L. Duncan ◽  
Sharolyn J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Real Estate ◽  
Annual Budget ◽  
Park Service

The annual budget for the United States National Park Service was roughly three billion dollars in 2016. This is distributed amongst 405 National Parks, 23 national scenic and historic trails, and 60 wild and scenic rivers. Entrance fees and concessions generate millions of dollars in income for the National Park Service; however, this metric fails to account for the total value of the National Parks. In failing to consider the value of the ecosystem services provided by the National Parks we fail to quantify and appreciate the contributions our parks make to society. This oversight allows us to continue to underfund a valuable part of our natural capital and consequently damage our supporting environment, national heritage, monetary economy, and many of our diverse cultures. We explore a simple benefits transfer valuation of the United States national parks using National Land Cover Data from 2011 and ecosystem service values determined by Costanza (et al). This produces an estimate suggesting the parks provide $84 billion / year in ecosystem service value. If the natural infrastructure 'asset' that is our national park system had a budget comparable to a piece of commercial real estate of this value, the annual budget of the National Park Service would be roughly an order of magnitude larger at something closer to $30 billion rather than $3 billion.

scholarly journals Preservation and DNA Fingerprinting of the Historic Tidal Basin Cherries

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-192
Author(s):  
Margaret R. Pooler
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Rapd Markers ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genetic Distances ◽  
Tidal Basin ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Flowering Cherry ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The historic Japanese flowering cherry trees planted around the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, were given to the United States in 1912 as a gift from Japan, yet only a small portion of the original trees remain. In cooperation with the National Park Service, the U.S. National Arboretum clonally propagated a portion of these trees. DNA from these and other P. x yedoensis plants obtained from domestic commercial nurseries were compared using RAPD markers. Twenty-one 10-nucleotide primers yielded 80 repeatable bands that were used to assess genetic distances among the accessions. The genetic distances ranged from 0.65 to 1.0, with thirteen accessions identical at all loci tested. The most genetically dissimilar trees were P. x yedoensis accessions that were collected as seed in Japan. Accessions obtained from commercial nurseries including ‘Afterglow’, ‘Akebono’, and Yoshino were also dissimilar to the Tidal Basin trees. This study indicated that most of the older trees planted around the Tidal Basin are genetically very similar, but that variability in P. x yedoensis exists, especially in accessions collected as seed from Japan.

scholarly journals Fire History of the Lamar River Drainage, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 169-173
Author(s):  
Stephen Barrett ◽  
Stephen Arno
Keyword(s):  
Yellowstone National Park ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Lodgepole Pine ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Pine Forests ◽  
River Drainage ◽  
Tree Ring Data ◽  
History Of

This study's goal is to document the fire history of the Lamar River drainage, southeast of Soda Butte Creek in the Absaroka Mountains of northeastern Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Elsewhere in YNP investigators have documented very long-interval fire regimes for lodgepole pine forests occurring on rhyolitic derived soils (Romme 1982, Romme and Despain 1989) and short-interval fire regimes for the Douglas-fir/grassland types (Houston 1973). No fire regime information was available for lodgepole pine forests on andesitic derived soils, such as in the Lamar drainage. This study will provide managers with a more complete understanding of YNP natural fire history, and the data will supplement the park's Geographic Information System (GIS) data base. Moreover, most of the study area was severely burned in 1988 and historical tree ring data soon will be lost to attrition of potential sample trees.

Design and Build of a Portable Instrumentation Elevation Tower

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnathan Jernigan ◽  
Christopher Moore ◽  
Ron Rizzo ◽  
Kevin Schmaltz
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
National Park ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Battery Life ◽  
United States Geological Survey ◽  
Life Issues ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Cave Environment

The Western Kentucky University (WKU) Department of Engineering is collaborating with National Park Service – Inventory and Monitoring scientists to support National Park Service (NPS) cave environment and ecosystems research. The NPS, together with the United States Geological Survey, provided the funding that has allowed WKU Engineering students, working with WKU faculty and staff and NPS scientists, to design, build, test and deliver two transportable instrumentation lift systems. Each lift tower has a stationary top platform and a secondary platform capable of continuously raising and lowering instrumentation over extended, unattended periods. NPS-owned instrumentation on the platforms collects air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity data, storing results to NPS-owned devices located on or below the tower. NPS scientists will use the system to gather more accurate data on the quality and movement of air within cave passages and develop predictive models of the environment. The new system will allow measurements as high as 30 feet and make long-term data collection feasible. A variety of design challenges were met by the students working on the project. Portability, flexibility and weight reduction were achieved through a collapsible aluminum base securing the tower, with three-foot PVC sections to build varying tower heights. Stability was accomplished with a tensioning cable system and a gripping mechanism integrated into the base to secure the incomplete tower. Cable spool design and data collection programming achieved positioning accuracy of the moving platform. In addition to satisfying functional needs, the towers were also designed to avoid damage to cave surfaces and meet challenging operating requirements. Tower components are reasonably lightweight and durable, components are shock-resistant, moisture-resistant, easy to dry and clean, and non-corroding. The design modularity facilitates transport by two NPS personnel using duffle bags, and is easy to set up and move. The towers support multiple instruments weighing as much as 10 pounds, can be modified to support instruments in varied configurations, and can be repaired in-house by NPS personnel. The towers were designed and tested to assure user friendly, reliable operation. Tower stability, ease of tower construction, accuracy of platform movement, and required battery life issues were solved by the students.

Why Administrative Histories Matter

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 236-263
Author(s):  
Joan M. Zenzen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Management Decisions ◽  
Park Service ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Integrity ◽  
A Site ◽  
Inform Decision Making

This article chronicles the history of administrative histories within the National Park Service. Administrative histories describe the history of a site or a group of parks. They can be important resources for management decisions. Managers, however, often do not know about or pay attention to these documents. Some managers have even threatened the intellectual integrity of these histories. Despite these issues, administrative histories matter: they fill an acute need by park superintendents and others to inform decision making and help with reporting and preservation.

Fire history in ponderosa pine landscapes of Grand Canyon National Park: is it reliable enough for management and restoration?

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 433 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Ponderosa Pine ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Grand Canyon ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Grand Canyon National Park ◽  
High Severity ◽  
The Impact

Reconstructing fire regimes of the past can provide a valuable frame of reference for understanding the impact of human land uses on contemporary fire and forest structure, but methods for reconstructing past fire regimes are under re-evaluation. In the present article, a common method of characterizing surface fire regimes, using composite fire intervals from fire scars, is shown to significantly underestimate the length of the fire rotation and population mean fire interval in Grand Canyon landscapes where these parameters are known. Also, the evidence and interpretation that past high-severity fire was uncommon in ponderosa pine landscapes in Grand Canyon National Park are challenged. Together, these two concerns mean that an alternative characterization of the fire regime, which has very different implications, cannot be excluded. Management aimed at lowering fire risk, as a means of restoration, does not presently have a sound scientific basis, if it uses the composite fire interval as a measure of the fire regime or is based on fire history research that lacks adequate analysis of past high-severity fire.

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