Watershed Symposium 2020

Climate change in the western U.S. is causing larger fires (Abatzoglou & Williams 2016; Westerling 2016) and more extreme precipitation events (Prein et al. 2017). When these two changes collide, they create massive ecosystem disturbance, affecting terrestrial and aquatic environments as well as human well-being (Pyne 2007; Jones et al. 2016). The remnants of Hurricane Rosa stormed through the semi-arid Western United States, pouring ~25% of the area’s yearly precipitation in only a few days. The rainfall came down on a fresh 150,000-acre burn scar in central Utah’s Wasatch Mountain range. High-frequency water monitoring stations were erected before the hurricane arrived and are currently still maintained. Preliminary results indicated that anthropogenic landscape influence has a stronger impact on stream chemistry than wildfire-precipitation event combinations. Long term monitoring results affirm those findings and add data to catchment characteristics, duration of megafire effects, and other water quality measurements. We discuss how changes in management can make Utah ecosystems more resilient to large wildfires and extreme storm events.