A Landscape-Level Approach to Fuels Management Through Ecological Restoration: Developing a Knowledge Base for Application to Historic Oak-Pine Savanna

Funded by Joint Fire Science Program, 2004 - 2008

Principal Investigators:  Bart Johnson (University of Oregon), Scott Bridgham  (University of Oregon), Jane Kertis (U.S. Forest Service)

Ph.D. Students:  Gabe Yospin (Ph.D.)

M.S. Students:  Jonathan Day, Karen Sonnenblick, Meghan Murphy, Jenna Garmon, Adrienne Moll

     The objective of this project was to examine the potential for using restoration of oak savanna and upland prairie in the Willamette Valley (WV) of western Oregon to reduce the potential for catastrophic fires.  As in many regions of the U.S., oak savanna and prairies were once widespread in the WV, but now only ~ 1 percent of the original area remains.  These ecosystems are associated with a number of rare and endangered plants and animals.  Former savanna and prairie were maintained by frequent Native American burning, but fire suppression has been practiced in the WV since Euro-American settlement circa 1860.  One of the main fates of former savanna and prairie has been succession to woodlands and forests.  The majority of Oregon’s urban areas are in the WV, and in many cases the wildland-urban interface includes large areas that are currently densely wooded but that were formerly savanna and prairie.  Thus, an opportunity exists to both restore imperiled ecosystems and to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire.

     This project had four objectives:

Objective 1: Analyze oak-pine distribution, health, and threats to persistence in relation to soils, site physiography, fuel loading, and vegetation using multivariate statistical techniques across the primary range of conditions for historical oak-pine savanna in the southern Willamette Valley.

Objective 2: Analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of succession from oak-pine savanna to Douglas-fir forest in relation to edaphic and site physiographic features.

Objective 3: Evaluate the potential for combining oak-pine savanna restoration with fuels reduction management, and develop recommendations for the joint process of restoration and fuels management across a range of key historical and contemporary oak-pine community types.

Objective 4: Work with land managers and agency specialists at key project stages to draw upon their knowledge of landscape and site management needs and to provide them with pertinent and useful project deliverables.

Further details of this project are given in the final report: JFSP Final Report

Future Research

     We will continue to build on this project’s research through a large interdisciplinary project recently funded for four years by the National Science Foundation’s Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program, and the new project is a direct outgrowth of this JFSP project.  Principal investigators for the NSF project include those from the JFSP project (Johnson, Bridgham and Kertis) as well as biological and social scientists from the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and the USDA Forest Service.  Link: NSF Coupled Natural Human Ecosystem Project