Team Name: Gila Water Resources II
Project Video Title: Fire and the Flood: Watershed
Response to Wildfire in Gila National Forest
POC Name: Carli Merrick
POC Email: merrick.carli@gmail.com
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>> NARRATOR: The Gila National Forest in Southwestern
New Mexico is a diverse landscape that covers
more than 3 million acres of land.
This region has a semi-arid climate and is
subject to the seasonal North American Monsoon.
[pause]
>> NARRATOR: It’s also home to the headwaters
of the San Francisco and Gila Rivers which
are major water sources for communities and
habitats downstream in New Mexico and Arizona.
This area, however, is also prone to a frequent
destructive force...
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>> NARRATOR: wildfire.
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>> NARRATOR: In the last few decades, wildfires
have increased in frequency and severity,
much like other natural disasters.
And what long-term recovery after wildfires
looks like in this area is largely unknown
especially with regards to the watershed.
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>> RAHA HAKIMDAVAR: So, wildfires, especially
significant wildfires, can really alter every
part of the natural hydrologic cycle of a
watershed – touching almost every component
of that cycle.
If you have fewer trees, less vegetation,
because they’ve been burned off, then you
have less interception and essentially you
have more water that’s making it on to the
forest floor.
>> NARRATOR: The US Forest Service Gila National
Forest, have observed what seems to be dramatic
increases in streamflow in the years following
wildfire events, many times resulting in floods
downstream, and destruction of restoration
efforts such as stream bank reconstruction.
They hope to answer questions about the recovery
of watersheds in the forest and if and how
their restoration practices are helping.
>> RAHA HAKIMDAVAR:Immediately following a
wildfire, we can expect to see more risk of
flooding , especially flash floods which are
really one of the most dangerous and destructive
type of floods that we can have.
We can also expect to see mud flow and debris
flow, so really a lot of impact on our infrastructure
and even putting people’s lives at risk.
>> NARRATOR: The Gila Water Resources NASA
DEVELOP team partnered with the US Forest
Service Region 3 and Gila National Forest
to find answers to these questions.
>> NARRATOR: NASA Earth Observations Landsat
5 Thematic Mapper, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic
Mapper Plus, and Landsat 8 Operational Land
Imager were used to asses the status of vegetation
recovery in previously burned areas of the
forest that had been restored with seeding
and mulching compared to burned areas that
had not been restored.
Additionally, NASA’s Global Precipitation
Measurement satellite’s IMERG product and
USGS stream gauges were used to asses the
change in precipitation and streamflow relationships
pre and post-fire.
>> RAHA HAKIMDAVAR: So, in 1995 about 16%
of the appropriated budget of the entire agency
went towards fire.
In 2016 that number was over 50%.
And that number is anticipated over the next
few years to go up to over two thirds.
>> RAHA HAKIMDAVAR: You know, we really have
a need to utilize Earth observation data [and]
any kind of remote sensing data.
That can be used in leu of the ground-based
monitoring that we simply just don’t have
the people or the budget to do in the same
way that we were able to do so beforehand.
>> NARRATOR: The results of these analyses
will be used by the Gila National Forest to
make management decisions about wildfire preparation
and restoration.
The results will also be shared with the US
Forest Service on a national level to potentially
be used beyond the Gila.
>> RAHA HAKIMDAVAR: You know, we see the Gila
in some ways as a test case.
We would love to think about how to scale
that up and potentially apply the similar
tools/methodologies on other forests that
have similar issues.
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