Please join us this Thursday April 8th at 3:30 pm PST to hear about Dr. Susan Dickerson-Lange’s latest work on forest effects on snow storage.

Title: “Ranking Forest Effects on Snow Storage: A Hierarchical Framework To Support Forest Management”

Speaker: Dr. Susan Dickerson-Lange, Geomorphologist & Hydrologist- Natural Systems Design. Learn more about Dr. Dicerkson-Lange here.

Forests modify snow accumulation and ablation rates, and overall snow storage amounts and durations, with multiple processes acting simultaneously and often in different directions. To synthesize complex forest-snow relations and help guide decisions that forest and water managers must make now, we present a decision tree model based on a hypothesized hierarchy of processes and associated variables that predict forest effects on snow storage. We apply the model to map the influence of forests on snow storage under historic and warming climate conditions across the western United States to provide practitioners a first-step evaluation to guide management decisions that consider where and how forests can be managed to optimize in-situ water storage alongside other objectives, such as reducing wildfire fuels. This framework also articulates geospatial hypotheses that we are currently testing with field data collection in the eastern Cascades.

Get the Zoom Link here.