Jones Kelly W, Cannon Jeffery B, Saavedra Freddy A, Kampf Stephanie K, Addington Robert N, Cheng Antony S, MacDonald Lee H, Wilson Codie, Wolk Brett
Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2017 Aug 1;198(Pt 2):66-77. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.05.023. Epub 2017 May 11.
A small but growing number of watershed investment programs in the western United States focus on wildfire risk reduction to municipal water supplies. This paper used return on investment (ROI) analysis to quantify how the amounts and placement of fuel treatment interventions would reduce sediment loading to the Strontia Springs Reservoir in the Upper South Platte River watershed southwest of Denver, Colorado following an extreme fire event. We simulated various extents of fuel mitigation activities under two placement strategies: (a) a strategic treatment prioritization map and (b) accessibility. Potential fire behavior was modeled under each extent and scenario to determine the impact on fire severity, and this was used to estimate expected change in post-fire erosion due to treatments. We found a positive ROI after large storm events when fire mitigation treatments were placed in priority areas with diminishing marginal returns after treating >50-80% of the forested area. While our ROI results should not be used prescriptively they do show that, conditional on severe fire occurrence and precipitation, investments in the Upper South Platte could feasibly lead to positive financial returns based on the reduced costs of dredging sediment from the reservoir. While our analysis showed positive ROI focusing only on post-fire erosion mitigation, it is important to consider multiple benefits in future ROI calculations and increase monitoring and evaluation of these benefits of wildfire fuel reduction investments for different site conditions and climates.
美国西部有少量但数量在不断增加的流域投资项目专注于降低野火对城市供水的风险。本文运用投资回报率（ROI）分析来量化在科罗拉多州丹佛市西南部上南普拉特河流域发生极端火灾事件后，燃料处理干预措施的数量和布局将如何减少流入斯特龙蒂亚斯普林斯水库的沉积物负荷。我们在两种布局策略下模拟了不同程度的燃料缓解活动：（a）战略处理优先级地图和（b）可达性。在每种程度和情景下对潜在火灾行为进行建模，以确定对火灾严重程度的影响，并以此估计处理措施对火灾后侵蚀的预期变化。我们发现，在大风暴事件后，当在优先区域进行火灾缓解处理时，投资回报率为正，但在处理超过50%-80%的森林面积后，边际回报递减。虽然我们的投资回报率结果不应被用作规定性依据，但它们确实表明，在发生严重火灾和降水的条件下，基于减少从水库疏浚沉积物的成本，对上南普拉特河的投资有可能带来正的财务回报。虽然我们的分析仅关注火灾后侵蚀缓解的情况下显示出正的投资回报率，但在未来的投资回报率计算中考虑多种效益，并加强对不同场地条件和气候下野火燃料减少投资的这些效益的监测和评估非常重要。
