Great Basin Wind-driven Soil ErosionFires in the Great Basin burn above- and below-ground vegetation, lichens, and mosses, that would stabilize soils, leaving the soils susceptible to wind-driven erosion. The increasing fire frequency in the Great Basin exacerbates wind-driven erosion, which poses human, animal, and rangeland health risks. We aim to study the effects of post-fire wind-driven erosion in the Great Basin.
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Projects |
We work with the BLM to study the effects of post-fire restoration treatments on wind erosion and vegetation recovery. Our work includes installing sediment traps and climatic instrumentation on fires to monitor post-fire wind erosion. We are part of the National Wind Erosion Research Network (NWERN), a nation-wide network of wind erosion monitoring sites, in partnership with the Ely and Winnemucca, Nevada BLM districts. NWERN sites are 100 by 100 meter plots with an array of twenty-seven Modified Wilson and Cooke (MWAC) sediment traps along with climatic instrumentation on a homogeneous landscape. We have two sites on the 2018 Martin Fire in central Nevada to monitor the effects of post-fire landscapes on wind erosion and vegetation. |