Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.
USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges (EFRs) are scientific treasures, providing secure, protected research sites where complex and diverse ecological processes are studied over the long term. This book offers several examples of the dynamic interactions among questions of public concern or policy, EFR research, and natural resource management practices and policies. Often, trends observed – or expected -- in the early years of a research program are contradicted or confounded as the research record extends over decades. The EFRs are among the few areas in the US where such long-term research has been carried out by teams of scientists. Changes in society’s needs and values can also redirect research programs. Each chapter of this book reflects the interplay between the ecological results that emerge from a long-term research project and the social forces that influence questions asked and resources invested in ecological research. While these stories include summaries and syntheses of traditional research results, they offer a distinctly new perspective, a larger and more complete picture than that provided by a more typical 5-year study. They also provide examples of long-term research on EFRs that have provided answers for questions not even imagined at the time the study was installed.
This book has been published a decade after Fires Effects on Ecosystems by DeBano, Neary, and Folliott (1998), and builds on their foundation to update knowledge on natural post-fire processes and describe the use and effectiveness of various restoration strategies that may be applied when human intervention is warranted. The chapters in this book, written by leading scientists, have been compiled to provide relevant and accessible information to students, land managers, and policy-makers as well as other scientists.
A new era in wildland fuel sciences is now evolving in such a way that fire scientists and managers need a comprehensive understanding of fuels ecology and science to fully understand fire effects and behavior on diverse ecosystem and landscape characteristics. This is a reference book on wildland fuel science; a book that describes fuels and their application in land management. There has never been a comprehensive book on wildland fuels; most wildland fuel information was put into wildland fire science and management books as separate chapters and sections. This book is the first to highlight wildland fuels and treat them as a natural resource rather than a fire behavior input. Moreover, there has never been a comprehensive description of fuels and their ecology, measurement, and description under one reference; most wildland fuel information is scattered across diverse and unrelated venues from combustion science to fire ecology to carbon dynamics. The literature and data for wildland fuel science has never been synthesized into one reference; most studies were done for diverse and unique objectives. This book is the first to link the disparate fields of ecology, wildland fire, and carbon to describe fuel science. This just deals with the science and ecology of wildland fuels, not fuels management. However, since expensive fuel treatments are being planned in fire dominated landscapes across the world to minimize fire damage to people, property and ecosystems, it is incredibly important that people understand wildland fuels to develop more effective fuel management activities.
From killer fires to ecosystem rehabilitation, an exhaustive survey exploring the ecological, social, and economic consequences of managing fires in U.S. wildland areas. * Provides a detailed chronology of events, legislative acts, policy controversies, and precedents for fire management in the United States, illustrating how the fires discussed reflect a continuation of trends established in the 20th century and before * Includes biographies of past and present forest fire management leaders, scientists, academicians, and policy makers
Renewed attention is being given to global agricultural productivity such as food security, food prices, financial viability of farm businesses under rising costs, declining availability and affordability of critical inputs including suitable land, etc.Thus, farming systems need to combine space maintenance and food herds in rural areas. Facing these new challenges, interest in grasses and grasslands as important forage systems has increased over the past 30 years, due to their economic, environmental, and ecological properties. A better use of economic and ecological potentials requires an understanding of their functions, and the development of tools for feeding herds, managing space, maintaining biodiversity, and limiting pollution.This book intends to provide the reader with the latest aspects on grasses and grassland for the well-being of farming systems.
