Research Mentor(s)
Medler, Michael J.
Description
Wildfires are increasingly on the minds of people living in Western North America as climate change and long periods of anthropogenic fire exclusion shift the dominant fire regimes toward possibly higher severity, larger fires than we remember. We are still piecing together the history of wildfires and how they have changed since Europeans settled in North America and moved West, and we know very little about the fire history of the areas where a large portion of our population currently lives. Using available government resources and data, I synthesized and created a fire Atlas of wildland fires in the Western United States and Canada from the late 19th to the early 21st century. I collected numerous spatial datasets, harmonized the attributes and spatial references systems and then created an atlas of fire perimeters. This atlas will provide a more complete dataset for future research and better understanding of the spatial patterns of fire on our changing landscape. This poster presents my initial results for the West Coast, as the first step of the larger project where I will synthesize, harmonize and visualize the dataset for the entirety of my study area.
Document Type
Event
Start Date
15-5-2019 9:00 AM
End Date
15-5-2019 5:00 PM
Location
Carver Gym (Bellingham, Wash.)
Department
Environmental Studies
Genre/Form
student projects, posters
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Wildfires--West (U.S.)--Maps; Wildfires--West (U.S.)--History; Wildfires--Canada, Western--Maps; Wildfires--Canada, Western--History
Type
Image
Keywords
gis, atlas, fire ecology, disturbance, forest ecology, spatial data
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Included in
Creating a Canadian-American Wildfire Atlas for Late 19th-21st Centuries
Carver Gym (Bellingham, Wash.)
Wildfires are increasingly on the minds of people living in Western North America as climate change and long periods of anthropogenic fire exclusion shift the dominant fire regimes toward possibly higher severity, larger fires than we remember. We are still piecing together the history of wildfires and how they have changed since Europeans settled in North America and moved West, and we know very little about the fire history of the areas where a large portion of our population currently lives. Using available government resources and data, I synthesized and created a fire Atlas of wildland fires in the Western United States and Canada from the late 19th to the early 21st century. I collected numerous spatial datasets, harmonized the attributes and spatial references systems and then created an atlas of fire perimeters. This atlas will provide a more complete dataset for future research and better understanding of the spatial patterns of fire on our changing landscape. This poster presents my initial results for the West Coast, as the first step of the larger project where I will synthesize, harmonize and visualize the dataset for the entirety of my study area.