GEOG 655: Fire, Water, and Conservation in the Northern Sierra Nevada

The goal of this class is to introduce students and others to the theory and practice of conservation and rehabilitation of fire-prone Sierra Nevada forests impacted by post-settlement logging, fire-exclusion, fluvial/wetland modification, and other related landscape disturbances. Forest ecology, its relationship to fire, and links with the water-scape will be explored. Land-use history of the North Yuba Watershed from what is known about indigenous tribal cultural management to post-settlement impacts following the Gold Rush will also be reviewed. This review will provide the context in which to appreciate the current threats to the watershed due to the risk of wildfire.

We will then work closely with Ed Smith, Science Lead for the North Yuba Forest Partnership, to understand their approach to addressing this threat through strategic forest thinning and prescribed burns planned for sites in the watershed and near the Field Campus. Issues surrounding monitoring and new state-of-the-art assessment will be presented. The course will ideally contribute to other summer classes that emphasize field methods to assess conservation management.

The workshop will be held at the SNFC and involve lectures, guest lectures, field trips, field design and possibly some field sampling experience.  Our intention is to identify particular treatment and control sites that could be used in the future to monitor treatment impacts on vegetation and provide a framework that could possibly be used to monitor mammals, birds, fungi, insects, and other organismal groups as well.