Sagehen Creek Field Station

18 Aug, 08 AM - 21 Aug, 03 AM

The Sagehen Experimental Forest is in the northern Sierra Nevada. The Sagehen Creek Field Station (within the Experimental Forest) is about 8 miles north of Truckee, Nevada County, California. It is about 12.5 mi2 and is predominantly pine, mixed conifer, meadows, and fens (UC Berkeley, 2011). The watershed is managed by the Truckee Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest and the Pacific Southwest Research Station and is primarily used for research and education. The climate is considered Mediterranean, attributed with warm, dry summers and cold, wet winters with considerable snowfall (UC Berkeley, 2011). A century ago, the Sagehen basin was logged and regrowth in these areas has resulted in overcrowding and even-aged forest stands (Sagehen, 2011). A long-term management plan for Sagehen in congruence with the approaches recommended by North et al. (2009) for ecosystem management strategy in the Sierra has been developed to address rising fuel loads over the last few decades and threats of catastrophic wildfires in the watershed (Sagehen, 2011). Actions will be taken in Sagehen to enhance the role of wildfire in the forests, reduce hazardous fuel loadings by modifying landscape, create heterogeneous forest stand normal for active wildfire regimes, and restore the declining aspen stands (Sagehen, 2011). The Sagehen plan will explore the effects of thinning and prescribed burning on forest stand structure and contribute a prototype for future management of fire risk across the West and the Sierra Nevada forests. The implementation of strategic burns in Sagehen presents a unique opportunity for investigation of pre- and post-fire analysis on a range of watershed issues. In this proposal, research will focus on a first order estimation of the pre-fire management and spatial and temporal variations in the basin?s water balance for a contemporary (~10 years) and historical period (~50 years), using both ground-based and remote sensing data. The analysis will establish pre-treatment hydrologic conditions in Sagehen and allow future evaluations of long-term changes from this baseline as the planned forest management evolves. This research will also investigate short-term baseline changes of the initial fuel reduction treatments on corresponding evapotranspiration and runoff patterns (undertaken during the summer of 2012).

Visit #26489 @Sagehen Creek Field Station

Approved

Under Project # 22468 | Research

Historical and contemporary water balance and preliminary assessment of post-treatment vegetation and hydrology in Sagehen

research_scientist - Colorado School of Mines

Reservation Members(s)

Group of 2 Graduate Student Aug 18 - 21, 2012 (4 days)
Alicia Kinoshita Aug 18 - 21, 2012 (4 days)

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East Cabin (Lower Camp) 3 Aug 18 - 21, 2012
Treehouse(Lower Camp) 3 Aug 18 - 21, 2012