Southwest Wildfire Hydrology and Hazards Workshop

AZGS is co-sponsoring the Southwest Wildfire Hydrology and Hazards Workshop to share recent advances to assess damage, provide hazard warning, attempt to mitigate hazards, and to study the wide-ranging effects of wildfire, and coordinate response to future fires in the Southwest. The call for abstracts is now open for the event to be held at Biosphere 2, April 2-5, 2012.

The field trip to the Huachuca Mountains will examine the 2011 Monument fire area (see video below)



This workshop is arranged around 4 broad themes:

1. Post-fire Research. What are the latest results from post-fire research, including, but not limited to: hydrological impacts (inc. flooding, debris flows), sedimentation, ecological impacts, water quality impacts, etc.? How can academic researchers better coordinate with government agency researchers? What avenues exist for funding post-fire research?

2. Models. What post-fire hydrological and hazard assessment models are available or in development? How have these been implemented and tested? What models work best and where? How might models be used to prioritize pre-fire treatments to reduce burn severity? How can post-fire assessment models be improved for use by response teams?

3. BAER Process. Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams rapidly assess impacts from a wildfire. What is the BAER process and how does it function? What roles might other agencies and researchers play in the BAER process? How might BAER teams assist researchers select study sites and/or implement research projects?

4. Warning Systems. What decision support is required to properly deploy hazard warning systems? What are the roles of researchers, agencies and the BAER team in warning system site selection and deployment? What kinds of warning systems have been deployed? How have they worked and what are the lessons learned?