MeetingOfInterest:Meeting-072

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AGU Chapman Conference: Synthesizing Empirical Results to Improve Predictions of Post-wildfire Runoff and Erosion Response

YMCA of the Rockies
Estes Park Colorado, United States
25 - 31 August 2013

Deadlines Abstract submission: The abstract submission deadline has passed Registration: Registration is now closed Official website http://chapman.agu.org/post-wildfire/

Research into post-wildfire effects began in the USA more than 70 years ago and only later extended into other parts of the world, notably Australia and the Mediterranean, in subsequent decades. The large empirical knowledge base that now exists in these three regions and others suggests that it should now be possible to compile this knowledge into an organizational framework that with analysis and discussion will provide new insights into some of the priority research issues facing the wildfire community.

Post-wildfire science is generally not recognized as a discipline in its own right, so the intention of this Chapman Conference is to bring together experts from the field of post-wildfire research, other fields of related research, and from the hydrologic modeling field to address current priority issues facing the post-wildfire community. The overall goal of the conference is (1) to address the priority research issues, and (2) to synthesize existing empirical data in a quantitative manner that will improve or provide additional model components designed to further post-wildfire research and assist the fire-effects community and land managers in the decision-making process. An additional goal is to encourage young career scientists to contribute papers and to participate in these in-depth discussions. This Chapman Conference encourages all interested scientists to contribute abstracts for oral and poster talks that are clearly related to the five sessions outlined below.

The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum: (1) where invited speakers can present different perspectives and new insights on each priority research issue, (2) for in-depth discussions (among all participants representing a variety of disciplines related to wildfire) oriented toward resolving issues, (3) for interactive field trips that highlight some of the issues, (4) to develop plans and proposals for future collaborative research efforts in different regions of the world using identical standard methods established for post-wildfire research, and (5) to determine the interest in establishing long-term measurement programs and organize them at different sites around the world so that post-wildfire response and recovery rates can be directly compared.

Planned products from this conference are: (1) pre-conference review paper, (2) AGU monograph of invited papers and other submitted papers, (3) journal papers focused on proposed resolutions for priority research issues for each topic session, (4) possible journal paper on the relation between burn severity and soil hydraulic properties based on data collected during the conference, and (5) proposals for funding of a joint-international program to monitor post wildfire responses using standard methods.