Project Info
*Addressing hydrological impacts, debris flows, and landslides due to wildfires
Danica Roth, Assistant Professor, Geology and Geological Engineering, droth@mines.edu
Matt Siegfried, Assistant Professor, Geophysics, siegfried@mines.edu
Brandon Dugan, Associate Professor, Geophysics, dugan@mines.edu
Wildfires dramatically change our landscape and directly impact our lives. At Mines, we often experience the smoke from fires and see the loss of property from fires. In 2020, these fires set records for burn acreage and came closer to the Front Range than they had in the recent past. These fires also alter the landscape, and can lead to hydrologic impacts and hazards that occur over different timescales. Rainfall after fresh burns can lead to debris flows that move quickly over large distances. The charcoal produced from the fire can also absorb water, promoting new growth and recharging the groundwater system. Charging of the groundwater system, however, can increase the likelihood of a landslide that may happen months or even years after the fire. Our project will use multiple approaches to characterize the hydrologic response to fires and assess how this can be used to better understand the potential for post-fire hazards.
The faculty team has interdisciplinary training and has extensive experience leading and participating in interdisciplinary projects. Based on our knowledge and experience, we will use the following approaches to collaboration. First, we will make sure that everybody on the team understands the overall goals of the iMURF. Second, we will cooperatively work together to define in which research tasks each group member will engage and clearly link each research task to the overall goals. Third, this research includes geology, geophysics, and hydrology, and so we will emphasize that collaboration across domains is critical to completing research that crosses traditional domains. This collaboration will be facilitated through regular project meetings with a regular and rotating schedule of meeting leadership and who presents. All participants will have an equal voice in these meetings.
More Information:
Grand Challenge: Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
Ban, Y., Zhang, P., Nascetti, A. et al. Near Real-Time Wildfire Progression Monitoring with Sentinel-1 SAR Time Series and Deep Learning. Sci Rep 10, 1322 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56967-x
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Moody, J.A., Ebel, B.A., 2014, Infiltration and runoff generation processes in fire-affected soils, Hydrological Processes, 28, 3432–3453, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9857.
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Moody, J.A., Shakesby, R.A., Robishcaud, P.R., Cannon, S.H., Martin, D. A., 2013, Current research issues related to post-wildfire runoff and erosion processes, Earth-Science Reviews, 122, 10-37, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.03.004.
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Rengers, F.K., McGuire, L.A., Kean, J.W., Staley, D.M., Hobley, D.E.J., 2016, Model simulations of flood and debris flow timing in steep catchments after wildfire, Water Resources Research, 52, 6041–6061, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR018176.
Primary Contacts:
Danica Roth, Assistant Professor, Geology and Geological Engineering (droth@mines.edu)
Matt Siegfried, Assistant Professor, Geophysics (siegfried@mines.edu)
Brandon Dugan, Associate Professor, Geophysics (dugan@mines.edu)
Student Preparation
Qualifications
The student should have basic geological and geophysical knowledge and experience with processing data. Experience with synthetic aperture radar data, GIS software, and/or hydrological property characterization would be beneficial.
TIME COMMITMENT (HRS/WK)
5-10 hrs/week
SKILLS/TECHNIQUES GAINED
The student will gain knowledge on wildfire history in relation to climate, experience developing conceptual and numerical models related hydrologic and geological processes, skills for processing and interpreting remote sensing data, and experience working across the boundaries of multiple fields. Students may also gain skills collecting field data such as soil sampling and in situ moisture sensing.
MENTORING PLAN
We will have a multi-level mentoring approach in the research group that will include faculty (Dugan, Roth, Siegfried), a postdoctoral scholar (Michaelides), graduate students, and undergraduate students. We also anticipate mentoring opportunities with the USGS Hazards Center (Rengers) and the Colorado Geological Survey (Lovekin) as they are also actively participating in Colorado wildfire research.
The research group will have meetings every other week to discuss research progress. Meeting leadership and presentation will rotate through the group. In addition to presenting results, we will give feedback to students on their presentations. The students will also have additional, individual meetings with one of the faculty/postdoc leads for more focussed discussion. If desired, the students can also contribute to grant proposal writing to advance this project and thus will receive mentoring on scientific writing and project development.
PREFERRED STUDENT STATUS
Junior
Senior