Upper South Platte Pilot Project

The Upper South Platte watershed is a key source of water for the City of Denver and other metro communities.  Impacts following  the Buffalo Creek Fire (12,000 acres, 1996) and the Hayman Fire (137,760 acres, 2002) included reduced water quality, higher water treatment costs, damage to infrastructure, and sedimentation that reduced the capacity of Strontia Springs reservoir by one third. Denver Water and the US Forest Service continue to invested heavily in fuel treatment work to mitigate the impacts of future wildfires on water resources. We developed a framework for assessing the effectiveness of different treatment amounts and placement strategies by linking fire behavior and erosion models.

Kelly W Jones, Jeffery B Cannon, Freddy A Saavedra, Stephanie K Kampf, Brett Wolk, Rob Addington, Antony S Cheng, Codie Wilson, Yu Wei, and Lee MacDonald. In Prep. Do investments in wildfire risk reduction lead to positive financial returns? A return on investment analysis of a payment for ecosystem services program in Colorado.

 Colorado Conservation Exchange Decision Support Tool

We are currently developing a decision support tool for the Colorado Conservation Exchange areas of emphasis, the Big Thompson and Cache la Poudre watersheds. The tool will be used for prioritizing fuel treatment type and location, assessing treatment effectiveness, and quantifying economic returns.